A Lesson in Love : Act of Affection Turned Into Nightmare for Mother, Daughter

WHITTIER —  It’s an idea that probably has crossed the minds of many parents of teen-agers. The kid is acting up, hanging out with a bad crowd, getting in minor trouble with the law. So why not give her a little shock therapy: let her spend a few days in the slammer to see what she’s in for if she doesn’t straighten out.

That’s what Gayle Carpenter of Whittier was thinking when she had her 16-year-old daughter, Lisa, arrested after a family fight.

But what started out as a “tough love” lesson turned into a nightmare for the 40-year-old, mother of three--and for her daughter. Carpenter thought Lisa would spend just a day or two in custody. Instead, she was held in the juvenile justice system for more than three months.

Lisa was finally released last week after a court-appointed psychologist determined that she had already been locked up long enough--and probably much longer than she should have been.

“I just wanted to do what I thought was best for my daughter,” Carpenter said. “I honestly didn’t know that what started out as an act of love would turn out to be nightmare. Parents should realize that if they’re going to try something like this it doesn’t always go the way they want it to.”

“I never thought it would go that far,” Lisa said in an interview the day after her release. “It was like I was trapped and couldn’t get out. There was nothing I could do.”

The problems started when Lisa got a new boyfriend. He was not, Carpenter said, the sort of kid who makes parents of teen-age daughters happy. One day last spring, Lisa and the boy were arrested for shoplifting at a local mall, Carpenter said. Lisa, then a junior at Whittier High School, was put on informal probation.

“There was never any problem before that,” Carpenter said. “She was always a good girl.”

After that incident, Carpenter said, she and her husband, Doug--Lisa’s stepfather--forbade her to see the boy. Lisa, whose father died several years ago, was also undergoing counseling.

Then one day in late June, Lisa took the family car and went to see the boy, not returning for two days. Carpenter was frantic. When Lisa finally got back to her home, she and her mother started arguing. Lisa wound up slapping her mother.

“I was upset and didn’t know what to do,” Carpenter said. “So I called my mother in La Mirada, and she said I should call the police. So I did.”

When Whittier police arrived, Carpenter said, they asked if she wanted to press assault charges against Lisa. Carpenter said yes.

“I didn’t want her to think that she could just get away with it,” Carpenter said. “I honestly thought she would spend a couple of days behind bars and be able to think about what she’d done. Then I would bring her home.”

It did not turn out that way.

Juvenile court records are not open to the public, and juvenile justice officials refused to comment on Lisa’s case, citing confidentiality restrictions. As a matter of policy, they will not confirm whether a particular juvenile is in custody.

Carpenter said her daughter was booked on assault charges and sent to Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey. Shortly thereafter, her case was brought before a juvenile court commissioner to decide where Lisa would be kept while her case wound its way through the system.

Carpenter said Lisa probably would have been sent home at that point, except that the hearing was held two hours earlier without anyone telling her about the change. Carpenter missed the hearing, and with no one present to take responsibility for the girl, Lisa was ordered held at Los Padrinos.

Two weeks later, at an adjudication hearing, Carpenter told the judge what happened the day Lisa slapped her and said she wanted to take Lisa home. Only later, she said, did she realize that the hearing was the equivalent of a juvenile trial. Lisa was found guilty of misdemeanor battery, Carpenter said.

But despite Carpenter’s request, Lisa was not sent home. Perhaps because she was on probation for the shoplifting incident when the assault took place, Lisa was sent to Florence Crittenton juvenile services facility in Fullerton, where she was placed in a counseling program. Carpenter said Lisa was able to come home a few times on weekend passes while at Crittenton.

But, almost two months later, after a county probation officer said that Lisa had threatened suicide, she was sent back to Los Padrinos, which is a temporary juvenile holding facility, for further assessment and placement. Both Lisa and her mother say the suicide report was erroneous, the result of a misunderstanding. At that point neither Lisa nor her mother knew how long she would be kept in custody. Lisa said she was told it could be for up to a year.

Lisa was remorseful over the problems she had caused herself and her mother. In a letter she sent her mother from Los Padrinos, she wrote: “Mom, I’m sorry for what I did. It will never happen again. I know it won’t. I just want to go home, go to school and make something out of my life. I love you.”

In the meantime, Carpenter hired an attorney to file a petition for Lisa’s release. She had to sell her Chevy Blazer to pay the legal costs. Eventually, the court appointed Judith Prather, a Whittier-based psychologist who has had extensive experience with both the juvenile and adult justice systems, to evaluate the case and make a recommendation.

Although officials at Los Padrinos and Florence Crittenton would not comment on the case, one official familiar with the juvenile justice system, who declined to be identified, said it would be highly unusual for a teen-ager with no serious criminal background to spend so much time in custody for an offense like Lisa’s, unless there were other factors involved.

“A lot of times a judge sees certain behavior in a different light than a parent does,” the official said. “There may be a whole bunch of things at work here that the parent doesn’t see. (The system) just doesn’t keep kids for no reason. There aren’t enough resources as it is.”

Therefore, the official said, there must have been something in Lisa’s home situation that persuaded the judge that Lisa would not benefit by being sent home after her conviction.

Still, the official said, “Sometimes there are mistakes.”

Prather, the court-appointed psychologist, thinks Lisa’s case was one of those mistakes.

Prather, who had Lisa’s permission to discuss the case, said that in addition to reviewing Lisa’s case files, she also met with the girl’s entire family and reviewed her school records. The picture of Lisa that emerged, she said, was not one of a teen-ager who required extensive incarceration.

“I think she slipped through one of the holes” in the system, Prather said. “She probably should have been released and referred to counseling at the earliest stage . . . Not every kid who slaps her mother winds up being incarcerated, and certainly not for three months.”

Prather added: “She was not a discipline problem (at school). She was an average to above average student.” As for Lisa’s family, Prather described it as “warm, supportive and affectionate. I saw nothing to suggest that the family was dysfunctional.”

Why then did Lisa spend three months in custody instead of being sent home?

“I think (the system) just automatically assumes that any kids who are in there have problems” at home, Prather said.

Also, Prather said, during her incarceration, Lisa was evaluated by more than 20 probation officers, placement workers and other juvenile justice system workers. But there was no one individual who followed the case all the way through, which might have provided a clearer picture of Lisa’s situation.

“I know it’s not an easy call,” Prather said. “I’m not saying there was any malice involved by anyone.” But, she added, “At some point maybe somebody should have said, ‘Hey, maybe something is wrong here.’ ”

At a hearing last week, Prather recommended that Lisa be released. A juvenile court judge agreed and sent Lisa home on one year’s probation, with a number of strict ground rules, including a 6 p.m. curfew and good performance at school.

Lisa is now living at home and back in school at Whittier High.

“I think we all got closer ‘cause of all of this,” Lisa said. “I’m just glad to be home.”

“I’m not blaming anybody, except maybe myself for not realizing what could happen,” Gayle Carpenter said. “I’m just happy that Lisa’s back home with us.”