Youth Camp Detainees Down by Two-Thirds

More juvenile offenders convicted of violent crimes are being sent home instead of being locked up as the county braces for closure of 19 youth probation camps.

The number sentenced to the camps dropped by about two-thirds over the last year--140 last month contrasted with 422 in December 1994, according to county statistics.

The trend has alarmed criminal justice officials, including Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti, who said he fears the streets are becoming less safe. “It is not protecting county residents to have [violent juvenile offenders] placed at home with little punishment,” Garcetti said.

Officials say more juvenile offenders are being placed on probation.

“The bottom line is that if we’re not going to have the camps, the answer just can’t be to dump these kids back on the street,” said Tom Higgins, head deputy with the juvenile division of the district attorney’s office.

Due to the county’s fiscal woes, the camps are scheduled to be closed by mid-February unless the state Legislature and governor find $17 million to fund them. Legislation to provide the funding is scheduled to be introduced this week.

Among cases cited by prosecutors as troubling:

* A 17-year-old gang member with 10 previous arrests, including ones for auto theft and evading an officer, a felony, was arrested again in possession of a short-barreled rifle. He went home on probation.

* A 13-year-old girl with three previous arrests was charged with two counts of battery, one count of petty theft and a count of giving false information to a police officer. Later, in a fight at school, she stabbed a girl in the leg. She too went home on probation.

* A 17-year-old boy, with two previous arrests, broke into a home and later admitted that he attempted to rape a woman. The youth received a sentence at a non-secure facility.

* A 14-year-old boy kicked his mother, then attempted to stab her with a screwdriver. He was sent home on probation. Then, last month, he was arrested again for possession of a .22-caliber handgun. He was placed in a group facility.

* A 16-year-old boy stole a bicycle and, during the crime, exposed a handgun in his waistband. He was sent home on probation.

* During a drive-by, a minor opened fire with a semiautomatic pistol, injuring one person. Though the Probation Department recommended a California Youth Authority facility, a judge ordered home probation.

“I can tell you without a doubt that there are people who are at home now because of this who would be in camp,” said Chief Probation Officer Barry J. Nidorf.

The camp system is popular among prosecutors, public defenders, judges, police officers and politicians who maintain that the camps are a last chance to rehabilitate wayward youngsters before they embark on a life of crime.

The camps serve as the middle ground for young juvenile offenders--between the harsher California Youth Authority, where some of the state’s most violent youngsters are housed, and the relative freedom of living in a group home or their own residences on probation.

The number of youngsters sent to the CYA--the next level up from the camps--rose only slightly, from 59 in December 1994 to 68 in December 1995, according to the district attorney’s office.

Presiding county juvenile Judge Richard Montes declined to comment. In November, after an appeal by the Probation Department to stop sending juveniles to camps because of the funding problems, he sent a memo advising court personnel that “until such time as funding is secured, camp placement orders are not a dispositional option.”

Six juvenile judges, commissioners and referees all said they continue to hand down camp sentences. None knew of any colleagues who had stopped or cut back.

Judge Jaime R. Corral, the former presiding judge of the juvenile courts, said that after Montes’ memo, judges had a meeting in which Montes told them to do what they thought best--including continuing to sentence juveniles to the camps until they officially close.

“The general feeling [among the judges] was that we are going to continue sending kids to camp,” Corral said. “It hasn’t deterred me at all. That’s the Probation Department’s problem.”

But a sampling of nine juvenile court divisions found a uniform drop in camp sentences and no marked increase in youngsters sent to the Youth Authority.

In the San Fernando and Antelope valleys, for example, camp placements decreased from 98 in December 1994 to 33 in December 1995. Youth Authority placements also dropped, from eight in December 1994 to six in December 1995.

At the Eastlake juvenile facility in East Los Angeles, camp placements went from 52 in December 1994 to 17 last month, while Youth Authority assignments increased from eight to nine.

In juvenile courts in the Pasadena area, camp sentences dropped significantly, from 32 in December 1994 to just six last month. Youth Authority placements rose from three to four.

“We have been slowly sending these kids back in the community without telling anyone, and with little or no sanction,” said juvenile division prosecutor Jim Hickey.

Camp proponents maintain that youngsters emerge with budding self-confidence, discipline, greater respect for authority figures and increased academic abilities. In addition, a typical camp stint is cheaper than a comparable CYA sentence.

The offenders “will be going back to the same parents, the same neighborhoods, the same problems,” said Christine Diaz, director at Camp Scott, an all-girls camp in Saugus.