Young Lawbreakers Get a Shot at Shaping Up : Private Enterprise Is on the Line at Rustic Camp for Delinquent Boys

LIVE OAK SPRINGS — Out here on the far side of the Laguna Mountains, where the wind blows hard and the scrubby brush begins to dwindle into desert, Bobby Brooks hopes to turn a few bad boys into men.

Miles from nowhere but under a spotlight nonetheless, Brooks and the Maheo Athletic Center, which he runs, believe that private enterprise can succeed where government so far has failed.

Maheo is taking teen-age boys--from small-time shoplifters and burglars to armed robbers and drug pushers--and working their bodies into shape. With any luck, their young minds will follow.

“State-run institutions are just not doing the job,” Brooks said. “They’re antiquated. They’re costly. They’re understaffed. The private sector can do the job cheaper and more effectively.”

The only private camp for delinquent boys in San Diego County, Maheo was approved by the county Board of Supervisors April 2 despite evidence that the program’s facility consisted of little more than a hastily built wooden dormitory that did not meet state fire standards.

Although Brooks and Tom Bailey, president of Maheo Corp., talk in grand terms of an elaborate physical training program they say will soon take shape, the camp’s 30 boys at the moment must settle for school indoors and daily football drills in a weedy and bumpy meadow.

The wrestling and basketball Maheo advertises aren’t available yet. Strength training takes place on a single household-style set of weights. The boys jog on the rutted fire roads that cut through the remote Manzanita Indian Reservation, where the camp sits on 50 acres leased from the tribe.

The dormitory is still unfinished--the boys will earn vocational credits for high school by helping to install insulation and fire-resistant sheet rock. An electronic fire detection system must be in place within five months to satisfy state regulators. Brooks said a gas heater is on order, but for now the boys--and the staff--shiver through chilly nights with the aid of a few extra blankets.

The boys sleep in bunks and keep their extra clothes in crudely built cabinets decorated with posters of such heavy metal rock ‘n’ roll bands as Kiss, Judas Priest and Scorpion.

Brooks said a field will soon be cleared for football and an open area will be paved for basketball. A prefabricated metal building will be erected as a wrestling and weight-training room, he promises. But all this will take time, he says.

Still, Juvenile Court officials say any program that is safe for kids would be an improvement over the county’s Juvenile Hall or California Youth Authority institutions.

“It’s much healthier to have these kids even in this rudimentary facility where they’re at least given some healthy exercise than in the hall, where it’s like a jail,” said Judge Judith McConnell, presiding judge of the Juvenile Court. “Anyone who has kids knows that about the worst thing you can do is coop them up.”

McConnell said the county is desperate for good local programs because Juvenile Hall and two county-run camps are always at capacity or overcrowded. Last year, the county sent 215 delinquent youths out of the county and only 15 to private in-county facilities, most of those to a small program in East San Diego.

“For us, this is like Christmas,” said Bill Bean, a supervisor in the county Probation Department’s juvenile services division. He said probation workers prefer to place delinquents in local facilities because this makes it easier to work with the juveniles and their families. “We’re delighted,” he said.

The boys are hand-picked by Maheo counselors who review files of youths declared wards of the court. Most have a history as runaways (four have already fled the camp) and many have been violent. Several interviewed by The Times said they liked the program more than others to which they had been sent.

“I just feel like this program is better,” said a 16-year-old boy from Vista who has spent time at the youth authority, the county camps and two private group homes in other counties. “You feel like the staff cares about you and they want you to make it through the program.”

The boys said counselors at Maheo take more of a personal interest in the youths than do probation officers at the county camps or Juvenile Hall.

“At the hall, when a fight breaks out, they yell ‘bellies,’ and everyone hits the floor,” the Vista youth, arrested for stealing an auto as a runaway, said. “If you don’t, they put you on the floor. Then they break it up and throw you in a room for 24 hours. Here, they break up the fight and then they talk it out. You don’t stay mad. They don’t do that in Juvenile Hall.”

Another 16-year-old, a National City boy arrested for burglary, said the staff at Maheo treats the boys “like family.”

“If you have a problem, you’re depressed, they talk to you,” he said. “For once we have someone who will listen to our side. They care about what happens to us.”

The boy said he enjoys the athletic orientation at Maheo.

“When you leave here you’ll be healthy,” he said. “I used to smoke cigarettes and weed all day. I’m finally getting in shape for once in my life.”

It is this emphasis on athletics that Maheo’s founders say makes their program unique.

Several of the counselors Maheo has hired have experience at competitive levels of amateur athletics. One was a running back for the University of Houston football team, and another was a wide receiver for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The staff also includes a world-class discus thrower, a cyclist and two body-builders. Bailey, the company president, was a college wrestler and coach.

“It’s a crutch we use to teach them self-discipline, self-confidence and self-respect,” Bailey said. “A lot of these kids have never been successful. When you win that ball game, that’s something you can never take away from them.”

Although Brooks worked for two out-of-state programs that have been accused of abusing youths--VisionQuest and Rite of Passage--and Bailey worked for Rite of Passage, neither has been tied to any of the allegations about those programs. Brooks and Bailey said Maheo (a Cheyenne word for “inner peace,” they said) will use the best of those programs without their drawbacks.

A typical day at Maheo begins with a wake-up at 7 a.m.

Inspection of the bunk areas follows half an hour later, with the top-rated boys winning the right to be first in line for meals, showers and other daily events.

After inspection, the boys file outside for about 15 minutes of low-key calisthenics to loosen them up for the day.

After a breakfast of pancakes, sausage, eggs and juice, the boys are split into two groups for the day. One group spends the morning outside, running and doing football drills, while the other stays indoors and studies under the direction of a teacher provided by the county Department of Education. After lunch, the groups switch.

The boys are counseled by the Maheo staff informally throughout the day and have regular appointments with county social workers.

Brooks said the program is designed to move the boys through a series of levels--depending on their athletic skill and motivation. As the boys progress, the idea is to move them from orientation to junior varsity, varsity and assistant coach, where they are expected to show that they can accept responsibility not only for themselves but for others.

“The boys have to complete their school work, treat others with respect and participate in the athletic program,” Brooks said. “If they don’t measure up to those standards, they won’t leave here.”

The minimum time for any boy to complete the camp program is 90 days, but most are expected to take much longer because they can be penalized days for misbehaving. From the camp, the boys may return to their families or be sent to a group home closer to town. Although the group homes are also supposed to be part of the Maheo program, the company does not yet have the homes in place.

The improvements at Live Oak Springs and the expansion of the program will come once the original site is well-established, Brooks said. The program’s founders used their own money for start-up costs and are now waiting to be reimbursed by the county before they refine the program.

The company receives $2,095 per month for each youth it takes in, 95% of that coming from the state and federal governments and 5%--or about $100 a month--from the county. In contrast, it costs the county $1,200 to $1,500 a month to care for boys in county-run camps.

McConnell, the Juvenile Court judge, said other private outfits will probably be watching to see if Maheo succeeds. If it does, more private camps may follow. She said the county has had a reputation of being unreceptive to such programs. In many cases, she said, private programs may be better than those managed by public agencies.

“I think private enterprises tend to be more innovative and try new things before public entities will,” she said. “Often, if you’re a probation officer, to be assigned to work in a place like Campo may be a fate worse than death. It’s a long ways out, it’s hard work, they’re tough kids. It’s a very onerous assignment for a probation officer.”

Bean, of the Probation Department, said Maheo has an advantage over the county camps because it has more staff members per child. At Maheo, there are four youths to each counselor; that ratio is 10-1 at the county camps.

“That’s like having a family with 3 kids and having one with 10 kids,” he said. “It makes a big difference.”

Bean and McConnell said they are keeping a close eye on Maheo to ensure that the program puts in place the features it has promised.

“They’re going to have to produce,” she said. “We’re going to give them a reasonable amount of time to do what they have to do. The proof is going to be how the kids do after they’ve been there a while.”