A New Start for Youthful Offenders

On this day of redemption, the young graduates scanned the stands for those who cared enough to come and be proud. They had messed up somewhere along the way, and Sunday was a chance to show they were not lost causes.

In a ceremony at Cal State Long Beach, about 400 young criminal offenders, wards of the county Probation Department, received their diplomas and GEDs.

Among those looking for loved ones in the bleachers was an honor student named Angel Aguilar Jr.

Throughout the speeches and applause, Aguilar’s eyes moved back and forth across each row of people, methodically seeking his father in the sea of faces.

It gnawed at him to know how much he had disappointed his dad--by joining a gang, by getting arrested for drugs and gun possession, by ending up in a work camp instead of an honors class, he said.

But today at age 18, he was one of the graduation speakers, one of the best students in his classes at the camp, and, he hoped, on his way to business college.

His dad, who collects bottles and cans for money, sent him a navy blue suit for the ceremony.

“I’m doing this for my family, to make them proud after some of the headaches I caused them,” Angel had said earlier Sunday.

About 1,000 students in the county’s juvenile justice system were eligible to attend the annual graduation. Most had studied for their high school equivalency exam, but many actually completed their high school course work at schools in juvenile halls, probation camps and residential treatment facilities, officials said.

Aguilar grew up in the Pico-Union section of Los Angeles and excelled in his classes until junior high school, he said. That was when, resenting parts of his family life, he started hanging out with a gang, he said.

His dad, also named Angel, tried to keep him out but couldn’t sway him.

The boy’s grades plummeted and he almost stopped going to school. At 14, he was arrested and eventually landed in a juvenile camp in Lancaster, he said.

There, two probation officers took an interest in him, he said. With their own money, they paid for him to take the SAT and used their day off to escort him to the test.

He did well; he got 1090.

By then, he was hooked on math. “I love the challenge,” he said. “I like to figure the problems out.”

He got out of camp a few months ago and started going to L.A. City College. But it was close to his old gang, and he was caught hanging out with them, a parole violation.

Now, he knows he is still trapped between two lives, so he plans to move away from home when he gets out and devote himself to school.

On Sunday, after he spotted his dad snapping photos from the stands, he took the stage and made his speech.

“I’ve had people in the past tell me I would always be a nobody,” he said. “But today, I guess they’re wrong.”