Delinquents Face Tough Rite of Passage : And Rite of Passage, a Camp for Troubled Youths, Faces Charges of Abuse

Law enforcement authorities here are investigating allegations of abuse and neglect at a primitive desert camp where delinquent teen-age boys--mainly from California--are housed in tepees on a remote Indian reservation.

The California Department of Social Services is paying the camp operator, a privately run, nonprofit organization called Rite of Passage, nearly $36,000 a year in state and federal funds for each youngster sent by county officials to the camp, which is 17 miles east of the tiny town of Schurz.

Rite of Passage receives a total of more than $1 million a year from California and the federal government to operate the camp, which is licensed by the Walker River Paiute Indian Tribe, owner of the camp site.

Most of the youths at the camp are hard-to-place, troubled delinquents who are wards of the juvenile courts. California counties place youths in the Rite of Passage program as an alternative to private group homes, county-run programs or the California Youth Authority. At any given time, about 40 boys between 13 and 17 years of age are housed in the camp.

The Mineral County Sheriff’s Department and the Nevada State Division of Investigation, which are conducting a joint probe into the abuse and neglect accusations, also are looking into allegations that some of the youths were sexually abused by other teen-agers at the facility.

Last week, U.S. Reps. George Miller (D-Calif.), and Harry Reid (D-Nev.) asked federal and California officials to investigate the camp, which they described as “an inappropriate program.”

Counties Pulling Youths Out

Three California counties--Contra Costa, Marin and Humboldt--have pulled teen-agers out of the camp because of the allegations. San Diego, San Bernardino, Alameda, Santa Clara and Placer counties have suspended placements pending completion of the investigations, but have allowed youths previously placed in the camp to remain. There were 31 youths still housed at the camp last month.

Rite of Passage officials said they are confident that the program will be exonerated by the investigation.

Nevada law enforcement authorities refused to discuss details of the Rite of Passage probe, but examination of documents, a visit to the camp and interviews with youngsters, camp operators and government officials disclosed that:

- Last summer a youngster was repeatedly chained into his sleeping bag at night by camp staff members to keep him from running away. Another youth was kept in leg shackles in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent his escape. Rite of Passage officials maintain that these two were the only youngsters ever to be shackled in the two-year history of the program and say that the practice has been halted.

- Youths have complained to at least one probation officer of suffering from severely cold weather at the camp, where youngsters bed down in sleeping bags on the fabric floors of the tepees. Winter temperatures in the area drop to zero. Kerosene space heaters are sometimes used in the big tepees, which house a dozen youngsters each. Some youths at the camp sleep in one- to three-man tents rather than tepees. A probation officer from Contra Costa County, Calif., reported that on a visit to the camp this winter it was so cold in the rudimentary dining hall that youngsters wore gloves to eat and when milk was spilled on the table it immediately froze.

- In the middle of winter, several ill youngsters were kept in a tent where they slept in sleeping bags on mattresses on the fabric floor. A kerosene space heater was placed in the tent at night.

- Youths alleged that Rite of Passage staff members frequently slammed them to the ground as punishment for defiant, obscene language. One youngster suffered a badly broken arm last April when he was thrown down during a scuffle with a staff member who had slapped him, according to Rite of Passage internal incident reports. The staff member was fired and two other staff members accused of physically abusing youths currently are under suspension with pay. But Rite of Passage officials maintain that any cases of abuse were isolated instances.

- Youngsters at the camp were frequently disciplined by being placed in “non-compliance” groups that were forced to march 16 to 18 miles a day for days at a time and denied milk and showers. Youngsters who misbehaved on the hikes were sometimes denied access to fire to heat their canned food at night.

- Rite of Passage staff members lock up all the youngsters’ shoes every night to keep the boys from running away, but youths still have escaped into the desert in their stocking feet, and one youth told his probation officer that he wandered through a Navy bombing range several miles away.

- This winter, the camp was sometimes short of water because of a faulty well pump.

“This facility is out in the middle of nowhere and is run like a Marine Corps boot camp,” according to a Dec. 19, 1985, letter from the Nevada Department of Human Resources to the California Department of Social Services.

Rite of Passage also has won praise, including letters to the organization from Santa Clara and San Bernardino county probation officers.

A Santa Clara County probation officer who inspected the camp in early January wrote that it was “meeting the youngsters’ needs” and pledged a “continued association” between the probation department and Rite of Passage.

A San Bernardino County officer who visited the camp in late December praised the program after observing that the youngsters indeed were not provided jackets during a cold period when there was no insulation in the dining hall.

“I believe, for a few days while the jackets were not available and while the dining room was not insulated, it was unpleasantly cold,” wrote Probation Officer Larry Marona.

“It’s still cold,” he continued, “but I do not feel in any sense that our wards are either neglected or abused. On the contrary, I believe they are being given a very healthy, positive opportunity for growth and redirection.”

Rite of Passage touts itself as a sports-oriented program designed to instill discipline, self-worth and accomplishment in troubled and troublesome youngsters.

“We are serious about all the sports we do out here,” said Jon Willette, a big, friendly former policeman who runs the camp.

Designed to Be Tough

Yet the athletic program at the desert camp is primitive at best. Youngsters attempt to play tennis on a dry and cracked lake bed, using strands of rope to mark the court boundaries and wire fencing for a net. The dry lake bed also serves as a football field. The camp’s basketball court is simply the desert sand and a single backboard.

“It’s designed to be primitive,” insisted Rite of Passage Board President Frank E. Dougherty, a psychologist in Placerville, Calif. “It’s designed to be a tough program. It’s designed to make kids have to achieve things they didn’t think they could achieve.”

Dougherty told The Times that the organization operates in Nevada because there is no provision to license such a camp under California Department of Social Services regulations for child-care facilities.

Besides providing a license for the camp to operate, the Walker River Paiute Indian Tribe leases the five-acre campsite to Rite of Passage for about $3,000 a month. Under complex federal law, Indian tribes in some states--not including California--are authorized to license facilities such as foster homes and group homes on reservations.

In California, youngsters placed in settings outside their own homes generally have been declared delinquent or dependent court wards and juvenile judges have authorized probation or social welfare departments to find suitable homes or institutions for the youngsters.

For the most part, these youngsters are placed in California facilities licensed by the state Department of Social Services. When youngsters are placed out of state, it is the responsibility of the placing county agency to see that the facilities meet proper standards to ensure the safety and welfare of the juveniles.

While probation departments in some counties, such as San Diego, frequently place youngsters out of state, others, such as Los Angeles and Orange counties, have policies against such placements because of the difficulty in supervising such cases and because out-of-state placements separate youngsters from their families.

Meanwhile, Rite of Passage officials say they would like to open a camp in California and are interested in the progress of a bill currently working its way through the Legislature. The bill would allow so-called “wilderness camps” for delinquents to operate in the state.

The bill, by Assemblyman Larry Stirling (R-San Diego), is backed by VisionQuest, a controversial for-profit organization headquartered in Tucson. VisionQuest, the apparent inspiration for Rite of Passage, operates wilderness camps and a wagon train for about 600 delinquent youngsters, about 80 of them from California, mostly from San Diego and Santa Clara counties. VisionQuest, with a $20-million annual budget, charges more than $30,000 a year per youngster.

At least 10 youths have died in the VisionQuest program nationwide in the last six years, seven by drowning along with two staff members when their sailboat was caught in a storm in the Gulf of California in 1980. A San Diego youth died in the program in 1984 after allegedly being coerced into exercising while his complaints of illness were ignored by staff members. But VisionQuest operators have not been convicted of any crimes related to the deaths and the organization’s public relations firm argues that the fatalities represent a tiny fraction of the 3,000 youngsters to go through the program since 1973.

VisionQuest has been damned by critics as expensive, ineffective and inhumane and for allegedly using cult-like confrontational techniques to humiliate youngsters who live for long periods of time in tepees or tents in wilderness conditions.

Defenders of the program are equally vehement in praising the program as innovative and as an economical, effective and humane alternative to the prison-like facilities run by the California Youth Authority.

Rite of Passage officials claim great success, but its follow-up data are sketchy, and the program has been in existence for only two years.

Average Stay Is 6 Months

While most of the youngsters at the Rite of Passage desert campsite are delinquents referred by county probation departments in California, non-delinquent “dependent” youths occasionally are referred to the camp by county social services departments.

After spending an average of six months earning their way out of the camp, Rite of Passage youngsters are transferred to one of two pleasant-appearing group homes near the town of Minden, Nev., headquarters of the organization. There, in comfortable quarters, the youngsters have access to quality sports equipment, bicycling trips and ski outings. But if they do not make a proper adjustment, they are sent back to the desert camp. Some youngsters have spent 18 months in the Rite of Passage program, much of that time at the desert camp.

The investigation by Nevada authorities results from complaints by Probation Officer Dennis Lepak of Contra Costa County, east of San Francisco.

Lepak filed child-abuse allegations after spending two days at the camp this winter and then removing two Contra Costa County youngsters from the program. Besides the cold and primitive conditions at the camp, the boys complained that youngsters were frequently slammed to the ground by Rite of Passage child-care workers, who are called “coaches” and who, according to program officials, are required to have only a high school diploma and athletic ability to qualify for the positions.

Lepak said in an interview that during his visit to the camp he saw a 15-year-old youngster zipping himself into a sleeping bag about 5:30 p.m.

“I said, ‘It’s kind of early to be going to bed.’ He said, ‘I want to be warm.’ It seems they can’t be warm except in their sleeping bags once the sun goes down. . . . “At eight o’clock in the morning,” Lepak continued, “I had breakfast in the (dining) room . . . with about 35 kids. I spilled some milk and it froze on the table. Immediately.

“The staff in the dining room spent most of their time screaming at the kids for putting their hands near this (kerosene) space heater, which I found myself doing a couple of times because I didn’t have any gloves. Most of the kids had gloves on. . . .

“In two days,” added Lepak, “I don’t remember hearing kids laughing. . . . Most of the kids seemed despondent. . . . There was lots of talk of suicide.”

Rite of Passage officials maintain that youths in the program are mainly hard-core delinquents who would otherwise be sent to the California Youth Authority. But Lepak said the two youngsters he removed from the program had committed minor crimes and that other youths at Rite of Passage appeared to be hard-to-place, difficult-to-manage teen-agers, but not hardened, violent Youth Authority candidates.

After the two Contra Costa County youngsters were removed from the camp, the county’s chief probation officer sent letters on Jan. 7 expressing Lepak’s concerns to probation officials of other California counties that had sent youngsters to Rite of Passage.

In recent months a steady stream of probation officers from California counties have visited the camp, according to officials of the program.

Counties Withdraw Youths

Over the same period, the three counties withdrew youths and the other counties suspended new placements.

However, on Jan. 13, Santa Clara County Deputy Probation Officer Michael Segal wrote a testimonial to David McGuire, who was then director of Rite of Passage.

Segal’s letter states that on Jan. 8 and 9, he interviewed five Santa Clara County youngsters in the Rite of Passage program, including a youngster named Richard, who apparently complained about abuse.

“We could not substantiate any child-abuse allegations by Richard,” Segal wrote, “and he was subsequently returned to your program. Additionally, all other of the youngsters interviewed claimed that while it was a difficult program in a difficult environment, they were not subjected to physical abuse, were dressed adequately for the weather, and most felt they had made personal gains.

“Personally,” Segal concluded, “I am enthusiastic about your program and find you to welcome and even invite close scrutiny. . . . I am confident you are meeting the youngsters’ needs and look forward to our continued association.”

Subsequently, director McGuire, who founded Rite of Passage, was placed on vacation leave by the organization’s board of directors and then moved out of the directorship and offered a place on the board and a paid consulting role.

Rite of Passage officials said the action was taken because McGuire was exhausted from his job and upset by the current controversy.

McGuire did not return calls from The Times, and his attorney failed to set up a requested interview.

Meanwhile, Jim McKenry, program director for Rite of Passage and a former Nevada state federal grant coordinator, has assumed some of McGuire’s duties.

McKenry said conditions at the desert camp have been improved by such steps as adding insulation to the crude frame dining hall and the one-room schoolhouse, putting linoleum on the schoolroom floor and by replacing plastic sheets in the schoolhouse windows with plexiglass.

McKenry said he is confident that the program will be exonerated by Nevada authorities.