Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / Sept. 12, 1996, edition 1 / Page 10
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10 Thursday, September 12,1996 Summit House helps to break spiraling criminal cycle ■ The home provides rehabilitation for convicted mothers and their children. BY VICTORIA ECKENRODE STAFF WRITER Children of parents in jail are more likely to become criminals themselves one day. Summit House of Raleigh works to k M mg B H mm JH H j/L Bum* m jHH iBB JML HE/ EBB hI % jopr i ■ B oßfEj 9k, Save The People You Call llpTo 44%. For long-distance calls. Savings based on a 3-min. AT&T operator-dialed interstate call. break that cycle by providing a home for mothers convicted of nonviolent offenses and their children. “Iflhadn’tcomehere, my child would have went through some of the same thingslwentthrough, like foster care and alcoholism in the family,” said one Sum mit House resident who asked that her name not be used. The women at Summit House go there to receive treatment and rehabilitation. Sandy Dixon, who is the development and community relations associate for STATE & NATIONAL Summit House, said the program kept families together. “Mothers work at get ting their GED, receiving substance abuse counseling and learning parenting skills,” she said. The Summit House opened over a year ago. The General Assembly saw the success the program had in Greensboro and granted the funds needed to open in Raleigh and Charlotte. The resident also said she chose to live at Summit House rather than go to prison because she did not want her son to enter foster care. She was convicted of violat ing her DWI probation by testing posi tive for her drug test. Now she attends Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous and attends classes at W ake Technical Community College. Summit House officials are looking for people to participate in its new Fam ily Support Volunteer Program. Summit House Executive Director Beth McAllister said volunteers performed basic tasks such as cooking meals, pro viding child care and planning leisure time for the families. “Volunteers do incredible things for the house, ” McAllister said. “They serve as role models for these women and many of them come from dysfunctional fami lies and grew up without role models.” Dixon said volunteers had flexible schedules and students could work around their class schedules. Those interested in becoming a volun teer for Summit House may schedule an interview by calling Sandy Dixon at (919) 755-0733. Slfp Saih} ear Heel _ "1 - hI IN THE NEWS Top stories from the state, nation and world Virginia Military Institute refuses to let in women RICHMOND Virginia Military Institute refuses to accept applications from women despite a Supreme Court rejection of its male-only admissiohs policy as unconstitutional, the Justipe Department says. The department asked the 4th U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond on Tues day to return the case to a federal court in Roanoke for an injunction barring the state-supported school “from continuing its exclusionary practices. ” ' VMI spokesman Mike Strickler sqid VMI had sent letters to female applicants explaining that VMI had not made a decision on coeducation pending a four day Board of Visitors meeting that ends Sept. 21. “If the decision is made that we will be coed, we will immediately send them all the information they will need," he said. “We’re not dragging our feet. We’re moving along as scheduled. We have a hard time understanding this.” Strickler said VMI had received about 50 inquiries from women. Virginia Attorney General James S. Gilmore 111 said the timing of the government’s request made no sense. “If what the Justice Department did today were made into a movie, they’d have to call it ‘Dumb and Dumber,”’ he said. But the American Civil Liberties Union praised the Justice Department’s action. “For an institution that prides itself for instilling a sense of honor in its students, VMI has acted most dishonor ably,” said Sara Mandelbaum, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project. After more than six years of litigation and more than two months after the Supreme Court’s decision, “VMl’s ad missions office continues doing business as usual—by not accepting applications from women,” Assistant Attorney Gen eral Deval L. Patrick said. The Justice Department said it went to court after informal efforts to resolve the matter with the school were unsuc cessful. Two more men convicted in assassination of Rabin TEL AVIV, Israel Two accom plices helped plot the afiSflssinaivos* ;of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, an Israeli court ruled Wednesday, convicting the avowed assassin’s brother and friend for conspiracy. Yigal Amir is already serving a life sentence for the Nov. 4 murder at a Tel Aviv peace rally. He was convicted of conspiracy Wednesday in Tel Aviv District Court, along with his brother, Hagai, and their friend, Dror Adani. The three will be sentenced Oct. 3. They face a maximum of 29 years in prison. Yigal Amir smiled as Judge Amnon Strasnov read the three-judge panel’s verdict finding “all three guilty of all the charges against them.” Defense lawyers said they would ap peal the convictions to Israel’s Supreme Court. Adani’s lawyer, Zion Amir, said the verdict was “not surprising,” but added that the judges based their findings “more on public opinion than the law.” Yigal Amir, a religiously observant Jew and former law student, says he shot Rabin to stop the prime minister from giving “land God promised to the Jews” to the Palestinians. Hortense wreaks havoc, kills 12 in Caribbean SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico Hurri cane Hortense strengthened today over open waters as it moved away from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. Hortense dumped up to 20 inches of rain and left at least 12 people dead in the area. The lightly populated Turks and Caicos Islands were struck today by Hortense, which is heading northwest at 11 mph packing 105 mph winds and heavy rains. The central Bahamas were expected to be hit by up to 10 inches of rain later today. Those rains pounded Puerto Rico with near-record amounts on Tuesday, flood ing streets and highways and sending rivers surging over their banks. Hortense cut water and electricity to most of Puerto Rico’s 3.6 million people, destroyed more than 650 homes and stranded hundreds of cars in chest-high water in San Juan, the capital. Two-thirds of the island remained without water and power today. The National Hurricane Center in Miami cited a slight chance that the hur ricane would cross the Bahamas and come within 65 miles of West Palm Beach and Fort Pierce on Florida’s east coast Fri day. But forecasters think it’s more likely a weather trough in the mid-Atlantic states will keep the hurricane offshore, pushing the storm further north and possibly tar geting the Northeast and New England by Sunday. FROM WIRE REPORTS
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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Sept. 12, 1996, edition 1
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