Corbett wants to see juvenile delinquents on restitution work crews and police officers in high schools and middle schools

Mayoral candidate Ron Corbett wants juvenile court judges to order juvenile criminals in Cedar Rapids to labor on community work crews to pay back for their crimes.

“It's time for juveniles that commit a criminal act against individuals or society to pay the community back through restitution work crews,” Corbett said Thursday morning.

Corbett said he has been told the local juvenile judges have been reluctant to order community service for juveniles because there is no program in place in which the juveniles can work. His idea, he said, was to have a city program in place and at the ready to put juvenile criminals on a restitution work crews.

He noted that Chris Brown, the young singer who assaulted singer-girlfriend Rhianna, is now doing community service for that crime. Brown is 20, but it is that kind of restitution that Corbett wants to see in Cedar Rapids who are under the age of 18, he said.

Corbett said his work-crew idea stops short of something akin to chain gangs for juveniles.

The idea is part of a five-point crime plan he was making public at a noontime event at Coe College.

Corbett also is calling for putting police officers in high schools and middle schools; adding a police substation on Cedar Rapids' west side; beefing up the Police Department's reserve-officer program; and adding volunteers to help staff police sub-stations.