Remarks by Governor David M. Beasley

Governor's Conference on Youth Crime - Welcome

March 6, 1997

Thanks, Henry. It's a great honor to welcome all of you to our first ever Governor's Conference on Youth Crime.

We've come together today from every diverse sector of South Carolina: state government, civic groups, schools, the faith community, the family, the courts.

And let me first thank Justice Finney for making it possible for our family court judges to be here today.

Each of us have very different jobs to do, but today we're united by one single, common purpose...to come behind South Carolina's children...to steer them away from the prison fences toward a life of hope.

As the good folks on our community-based youth councils, you are one of the best resources I know to help us do that.

This conference is an important part of your work...as a time to get together and flesh out new ideas and talk about what's happening back home and across the country.

It was the passion and insight of Inez Tenenbaum that really drove this event, and I want to thank her for the outstanding job she's done...with the invaluable support of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, DJJ and my staff...to bring it all together.

I'd also like to thank all our corporate sponsors for making it possible... SCANA, NationsBank, Flagstar, Policy Management Services Corporation, and National Bank of South Carolina.

We're already looking forward to making the conference an annual get-together.

Our entire Juvenile Justice Task Force has been a tremendous force for change ever since it came into being...and coming up with the idea for this conference was just one way.

Looking behind us after these two years, we can see a whole series of critical steps toward progress...certainly not without a few bumps along the way...but all moving us toward the forefront of the nation's best juvenile justice policy.

Here in South Carolina, we've refused to turn our backs on the children behind the fences. Instead, we made them a top priority.

We rejected the label "lost cause." And we looked for ways to bring healing.

I could give you a list as long as my arm of all the positive things starting to happen at DJJ. But let me run down just the top five.

First, with the leadership of Flora Boyd and Colonel Kispert, we ended the federal lawsuit and reduced overcrowding.

We created the Governor's Juvenile Justice Task Force to help us reform the system from the inside out.

We're building regional R&E centers so young people are closer to their families, and so we can also work closely with entire families.

We've built a separate facility and separate programs just for females.

We're creating a Youth Industries program to teach responsibility, a work ethic and a trade.

And we've moved from a warehousing mentality toward all kinds of specialized programming. That means separate programs for sex offenders and mentally ill youth, an addictions treatment unit. It means boot camps and an expanded ROTC.

And at the centerpiece of reform, it means wilderness camps. Our first camp is up and running, and three more will be coming on line in the next few months.

One fact is clear: storing juveniles behind the walls of DJJ hasn't been a wise investment. Incarcerating one juvenile costs us $27,000 a year...but 7 times out of ten that child walks out the door just to keep right on committing crimes.

So now we're taking children from the boundaries of barbed wire into a place where they can grow up and learn discipline and character and skills. Most of those kids are finding out they have a lot more to offer this world than a life of crime.

There's life-changing potential out in those woods. Judges are telling us about it. Because children are coming from the camp into the courtroom, and they're standing up straight. They're paying attention. They're looked up to by the other juveniles.

Parents and grandparents all over the state are writing us letters, telling us what a change they see in their child and how much they appreciate what we're doing.

Together, these two years, we dealt swiftly and surely with crisis.

We worked our way back through the system, creating a continuum of programs from prevention to release and everything in between.

Now we are ready to initiate change from the outside,...at the front end of the system...where these children grow and learn and live....at the hometown, grassroots level.

Many of you have been working out in those trenches for a long time. We're just glad to be able to draw from your experience to propel us down the path of progress even further.

Even though government can encourage change, it needs the hands of the people to carry it out.

You are the ones with the power to come up with ideas that work, to use what you know to make an impact, to steer a young life in a new direction.

We keep hearing about this groundswell of juvenile crime that's on its way, and that certainly brings a sense of urgency to our mission.

But there's also a groundswell of community activism found right here in this room...and in that current of compassion I believe we can all find reason for hope.

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