Hutchinson additions to juvenile justice bill pass in two House votes
By SUSAN ROTH
This article was published June 18, 1999 at 4:58 a.m.
WASHINGTON — The House on Wednesday passed legislation by Rep. Asa Hutchinson, R-Ark., that would limit the sale of guns to minors and allow states to develop innovative juvenile justice programs.
The decisions on Hutchinson's amendments, both of which passed on voice votes, came during Wednesday's day-long House debate over juvenile justice legislation. Lawmakers offered a total of 44 amendments to the main bill.
Today, the House is expected to take up related gun-control legislation that would require background checks on buyers at gun shows. The House Judiciary Committee, which includes Hutchinson, is controlling debate on both bills, even though neither bill went through the usual committee process.
The same highly partisan committee handled the presidential impeachment process last fall, and echoes of that stinging debate filled the House chamber Wednesday as the same voices passionately debated another issue.
One of Hutchinson's measures would make it illegal to sell or otherwise transfer a gun to a minor if the person providing the gun knows or has reason to believe the gun will be used in a school zone or to commit a violent felony.
The other amendment would allow some of the $1.5 billion authorized by the bill for juvenile justice programs to be used for a concept Hutchinson called "restorative justice." In such programs, offenders meet their victims, are forced to confront the consequences of their crimes and agree to a plan for restitution or rehabilitation.
"The situation in Arkansas dramatizes the seriousness of this debate," Hutchinson said on the House floor. "In 1998, almost 10 percent of all criminal arrests in Arkansas were juveniles. But 24 percent of arrests for violent crime, including murder, rape and aggravated assault, were juveniles. These are staggering problems that need to be addressed."
In an interview, Hutchinson said his amendment on transferring firearms to minors is meant to discourage adults from providing guns to minors and to prevent youngsters from asking someone else to buy a gun for them, such as occurred in the case of the Colorado high school shooting.
"If anyone transfers a weapon to a juvenile knowing they would use it for an unlawful purpose, that should be severely punished," the congressman said.
He acknowledged that it could be difficult to prove someone knew beforehand how a weapon would be used, and that it could be hard to convict someone under the measure, but said it was meant to "discourage this type of conduct."
Under Hutchinson's other amendment, state and local governments would be able to apply for block-grant money to develop restorative justice programs that involve the offender, the victim and the community in a mediation and restitution process.
"This will provide judges with an important tool to hold juveniles accountable for their actions, and it's also important for victims," Hutchinson said on the floor.
"The offenders have to confront somebody their actions really hurt," he said afterward. "It's a simple, common-sense idea using old-time values, the kind of thing that would've been worked out 50 or 60 years ago, before we had such a complicated court system."
He offered an example of a case in which a group of youngsters was caught throwing rocks at cars from a highway overpass, causing physical injuries and substantial property damage to 10 people in the cars they hit.
After four hours of court-run mediation, the offenders and victims agreed to a restitution plan including personal and community service by each of the offenders, the congressman said. One of the victims eventually became a "big brother" to one of the boys. A year after they were caught, the boys had fully paid their restitution and had not returned to juvenile court.
Because of confidentiality issues, Hutchinson could not say where or when this incident occurred, or whether there have been follow-up studies on the effectiveness of such programs. About 200 restorative-justice programs already exist around the country.
Hutchinson said his measure is meant to improve the Senate-passed juvenile crime bill, which includes similar language but does not define "restorative-justice" programs. He added that the American Bar Association in 1994 adopted a resolution urging the development of such programs.
Copyright © 2007, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved.v
