Bill would ban kid cleanup crews

Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2000 | 10:54 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Assembly Majority Leader Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, has asked that a bill be drafted to stop the use of juveniles in roadside cleanup programs and in other dangerous areas.

Perkins said today he received a call from the father of one of six teens killed by a van while they were picking up trash along Interstate 15.

"He was concerned about using kids in hazardous areas, and I agreed to put in a bill," to be introduced at the 2001 Legislature.

After the March 20 death of the teens, who were part of a Juvenile Court work crew, the use of juveniles for road cleanup was stopped in Clark County, but the program continues in other parts of the state.

Scott Garner, whose son Scott Jr. was one of the six who died, said he wants to start a nationwide campaign, beginning in Nevada, to get work crews composed of children off the freeway.

In this case, the juveniles were 14 feet off the highway with cars going 70 to 80 mph.

"You might as well have stuck them up against a wall and shot them. It would have been quicker," he said.

Garner said the parents were never advised by juvenile authorities that their children would be placed on highway trash crews.

"The parents were out of the loop," he said.

Garner said he thought the work crews would be assigned to a park or a vacant lot. If the parents had known, he said, they would have written a check to settle the case.

There are other places besides the highways that can be dangerous, Perkins said.

"There's construction zones and a lot of high-rise buildings, particularly in Southern Nevada. We don't want them picking up trash where things can fall on them.

"And we don't want them doing community service inside a jail. None of that is going on. But it's better to spell it out in the law," he said.

Stopping the juvenile work crews along the highway, though, is the primary focus of the bill. The legislation will describe what a hazardous location is, Perkins said, since every area can't be defined.

"We hope common sense will prevail," Perkins said.

The Transportation Department this summer signed an agreement with Washoe County to allow youngsters in the juvenile detention hall to work clearing up the highways. The juveniles will work only behind guardrails or barriers, not in medians or other unprotected areas.

Transportation Director Tom Stephens said he hopes to work out a similar arrangement, which he called a "model agreement," with Clark County.