Voices of Experience Caution Students on Crime and Drugs : Head Straight: Ex-cons and parolees in the schools program hope their life stories will deter youths before they start getting into trouble.

Acrowd of students who probably should have been elsewhere was gathered around the doors of Room C-109 at John F. Kennedy High School in Granada Hills, trying to catch every word being said inside.

Pacing back and forth with the help of a cane, Joaquin Bell spoke to a packed classroom. He told of regular abuse by his parents, how friends helped him escape through heroin and cocaine, how he had become involved in robbery and burglary by fifth grade, and of his parole last summer from state prison. At age 24, he looked closer to 30.

He has needed the cane since a severe beating in prison. “When you’re black like I am, you’re not supposed to hang with Mexicans. I did because these were the guys I grew up with. So a few lifers decided they were going to teach me a lesson.”

As his story carries through the room and to the crowd by the doors, 12 men and women sitting behind him solemnly nod their heads. Bell’s story is similar to their own.

Bell and the others are part of Head Straight, a group of recent parolees and ex-cons who speak at schools throughout the San Fernando Valley, sharing their experiences with students.

“One of my parolees, Chuck Brown, told me how he and some of the other parolees he knows wanted to bring something back into the community,” said John Austin, a parole officer based in North Hollywood who helped form the program in January. “They wanted to talk to kids who were still in school, hoping that they could make a difference in the lives of those who were leaning toward a life of drugs and crime.”

The group of 15 parolees and ex-cons meets at least twice a month at the parole division’s North Hollywood office to plan upcoming programs and talk over the issues they would like to present.

“I wish I had known about the negative aspects of drugs when I was in school,” said Brown, who was paroled last year after serving five years for attempted murder. “I used to sit in back of the class zoned out on Quaaludes. Nobody talked to me negatively about drugs, or at least I didn’t hear them.”

Brown and Austin recruited other parolees into the program and began approaching the schools. They based the name, Head Straight, on the youth corrections program Scared Straight, which was started in Rahway, N. J., in the mid-1970s.

“Although the purpose here isn’t to scare the kids, we’re trying to head them off before they start getting into trouble,” Austin said. The group’s slogan is “Ex-Cons That Care.”

“The emphasis of the parolees’ messages is personal choice,” said Gayle Rehbock, unit supervisor within the state Department of Corrections’ parole and community services division. “If you’re already going in a bad direction, you can choose to go a different way. You can change your mind at any time, and the earlier the better.”

The first school to hear the parolees’ stories was Hancock High School, a special education facility that is part of the Hathaway Children’s Services Center in Lake View Terrace.

“I was nervous,” said Richard Madrid, who spoke first. “I didn’t know what to say at first. I just began talking about my life, how it got screwed up and how I’m trying to put it back together.”

“In the beginning, I think the kids were a little intimidated by the whole thing,” said Frank Pace, a teacher at Hathaway. “But as each man spoke, the class loosened up a bit, and there were a lot of questions. I think it had an effect on them. Some of the kids needed to know what the consequences are when they get into trouble.”

Members of the group believe that they usually have the biggest impact when class ends.

“They’re embarrassed to ask questions in front of their friends,” said David Mercer, an ex-con who works as assistant director for a drug and alcohol abuse recovery facility in Sylmar. “At one school, a guy came up to me afterward and said he had been selling weed and coke and wanted to get out, but he was afraid the guys he dealt with would beat him up. I told him to lie to them, tell them the cops were questioning him and keeping an eye on him.”

“I tell them about all that happened to screw up my life, and you can see that they’re paying attention,” Jeremy Clinton said. “They see the same things happening in their own lives.”

Head Straight has appeared in about one school a week since February, including junior high and elementary schools. “Of course, for younger kids, the message is toned down quite a bit,” Austin said. “It was touching to see these guys on their knees so they’re at eye-level, talking to these third-graders about how they should take advantage of what school has to offer.”

Each presentation usually has a different mix of speakers because getting transportation or finding time off work for some parolees is difficult. “We have guys who have made arrangements with their supervisors to work extra hours in a day just to have time off to do this,” Austin said. “And we try to car-pool so that those who don’t have a ride can get to the school.”

During the Head Straight presentation at Kennedy, the speaker who probably received the most attention was Debbie Blair, 23, tall, blonde and striking, wearing a Gold’s Gym sweat shirt and with a pair of sunglasses fashionably resting on top of her head. She could have been mistaken for a student, ready to pick up her books and head for English class.

“I was addicted to rock cocaine, and I would have done anything for it. I’m 6-1 and I didn’t care who or how big you were, if you had something that I could get money for, I’d just walk up and take it. I’d fight anybody.”

She told the class that it’s hard to learn something when you’re expelled from the third, fourth, seventh and 11th grades, adding that being part of a gang taught her about life the hard way. “The whole time you’re doing things for the gang, they’re your family. As soon as you get into trouble, they don’t know you. After I was arrested for robbery, they wouldn’t return my calls; no one sticks up for you.”

Blair spoke about how she was once rushed to the hospital for a cocaine overdose, and her heart stopped in the emergency room for seven minutes. “They got a body bag ready for me.” Two days after being resuscitated, she was out getting high again. “Drugs and hanging out with the wrong people put me in prison. I have a son who’s 2 years old now, but counting jail and the time I was on drugs, I’ve spent about four months with him.”

Besides trying to benefit the students, the program is also designed to give participants a sense of worth. “By telling these kids about their lives, it helps solidify their own choice,” said Rehbock, the parole division supervisor. “If you’re telling them not to do drugs, you can’t be doing them. It’s a testimony to their improvement.”

“I walk out of a school feeling great,” Madrid said. “You feel as though you’ve accomplished something; you’ve touched them.”

As Madrid spoke to the class at Kennedy, he looked around the room and spotted a girl with elaborate drawings on her notebook. “Use that talent for something,” he said. “You have a skill that can take you far--develop it now. I was in prison for 10 years. I’m only 29, but I can’t get those last 10 years back; they’ve been wasted.”

“All of us in one way or another are trying to make ourselves better people, inside and out,” Mercer said. “Speaking about our problems is a way of making up for what we did.”

Stories about prison life seemed to draw the most attention. “The worst part of prison isn’t the fear of being attacked,” said Jim Knutson, who was released after serving 10 years on drug convictions just before Head Straight began. “It’s the mental torture of wondering how your family is, your girlfriend. You’re severed from them.”

Some of the men showed the tattoos they had applied to their chests, arms and backs while incarcerated, as well as the scars from each fight.

“I talk funny because I was kicked in the larynx,” said Russell Bliss, who was imprisoned for auto theft. “My body is broken because of the way I lived my life. At one point, I tried to commit suicide by drinking a bottle of nail polish remover. I didn’t even have success with that; it just gave me a stomachache.”

After each class, a handful of students would hang around to talk to the speakers. “We see mostly kids who see themselves in these guys,” Austin said. “They’re getting the message.”

But not everyone responds to it favorably.

Debbie Cordero, 16, watched one of the presentations for a few minutes from outside the door, then walked away, unimpressed. “It was interesting, but I don’t think most of the students could relate to what they were saying. If you’re not involved in drugs or gangs, you don’t have to worry about going to prison.”

Her friend Mark, 17, disagreed. “I think at some point anyone can cross the line to crime. It was good to see these people turn their lives around.”

Inside the room, Chuck Brown stood in front of the class, shaking his finger. “We would give anything to trade seats with you, to do things over. You have a chance to do things right the first time.”