Pennsylvania school districts and the communities in which they reside could benefit from a special, mandatory four-session course required by the state Legislature and Department of Education, targeted for one of the junior high grades and spaced out over the course of the school year.

The lead front-page article in last weekend’s Mirror - “Area sees increase in juvenile crime” - provided plenty of justification for such a special learning experience.

The logical question emanating from that article is whether the Legislature and Governor’s Office would endorse the idea and take meaningful steps to formally implement it as soon as practicable, preferably by fast-tracking the course’s preparation and providing funding to help districts surmount any local-level financial constraints that might exist.

The issue is serious enough to warrant such a get-it-done-quickly strategy. No community - not Altoona, not anywhere else in Blair County, not anywhere else in Pennsylvania, period - should have to deal with such an undermining situation.

Educating schoolchildren early-on about what crime-solving and criminal justice really are all about might go a long way toward helping young people avoid getting on the wrong side of the law.

What is being advocated here is worth a try, if not permanently then authorized initially as a pilot project - an experiment - covering a specific number of years, to be followed by a decision on whether it should be made permanent.

Last weekend’s article began: “Several teenagers charged as adults in a New Year’s Day shooting in the city (Altoona) are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, said local officials, who admit juvenile violence is a growing trend.”

The following paragraph mentioned Blair County District Attorney Pete Weeks’ observation that the lack of available bed spaces, probation officers and certain other resources has been making it difficult for law enforcement agencies to detain and address acts of violence by juveniles who see little - if any - consequences for committing serial crimes.

“That’s been a huge part of the problem,” Weeks said, adding that without consequences when they commit a crime, juveniles often increase the seriousness of their crime.

“They don’t believe that there’s a consequence because that’s what the system is showing them,” Weeks said.

Later in the article, Patrick Tomassetti, Altoona Police Department public relations officer, is quoted as saying shooting incidents involving juveniles are becoming a major concern.

Meanwhile, in that weekend article, Clark Sheehe, probation office supervisor, expanded on Tomassetti’s point, saying that although Blair County is considered a fifth-class county, it is seeing the amount of juvenile crime cases a third-class county would normally handle.

About the sessions proposed at the top of this editorial:

The logical first session would do well to touch on the investigation of a crime, evidence-gathering and the pressures those with evidence feel, whether or not they disclose what they know. The second session could center on the arrest process, and the third, on the court proceedings.

Finally, the fourth session could deal with incarceration - what the guilty individual is realizing as he or she is locked up for however long.

The education option can be one of the easier, less-costly assets for addressing the growing juvenile crime problem here or anywhere else.

Unfortunately, it is not a cure-all, and more ideas need to be forthcoming.

Altoona Mirror