A crying shame

There are all kinds of nominees for the most disturbing local story of the week. We nominate the one in which a judge in Pulaski County ruled a 17-yearold murder suspect must stand trial as an adult—in part because the juvenile system isn’t effective enough.

This is not to blame Judge Herb Wright, oh no, nor is it to make any sort of ruling on the case before him in a newspaper editorial. Let the courts handle their business. But when a judge in good standing in this state feels the need to call out the juvee system as not good enough, folks, something is the matter. And We the People are responsible.

It’s not the first time Judge Wright has felt the need to say, on the record, that the juvenile system isn’t making the grade. The juvenile system should be about reform and rehab. Remember, these kids are going to get out one day. Arkansans and their government(s) have at least two choices: Provide the people and money and classrooms and resources to set these kids on a path to good citizenship. Or let them waste away and graduate to bigger and better—that is, lower and worse—crimes once they get on the outside again. And walk among the rest of us.

If the state doesn’t spend the money to rehab these kids, We the People will have to spend the money later. On more prisons for adults. And those cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build and maintain.

Maybe the question is simple enough: How do we want to spend our money?