High Desert Schools to Get Anti-Gang Probation Officer

A county program that provides extra supervision for high school students on probation is being expanded from its birthplace in South-Central Los Angeles to the more rural setting of the Antelope Valley, where gang problems are a growing concern.

Beginning next month, one officer of the county Probation Department’s School Crime Suppression Program will be assigned to work exclusively with the six schools in the Antelope Valley Union High School District, county and school officials announced Tuesday.

The aims of the effort are to reduce crime on campus, cut truancy and provide more direct supervision and counseling to about 50 of the estimated 300 youths--gang members and others--on probation among the nearly 10,000 students in the district.

“We see it as preventive in nature,” said Sandra Moss-Manson, director of the Probation Department program. “If we can keep these kids from going on into more criminal activity, we’d feel we’re being effective.”

The program began in 1981 and until now has encompassed 13 schools, mostly in South-Central Los Angeles, county officials said. In that area, where there are more offenders who have committed graver crimes--the county funds a full-time probation officer at each campus.

The Antelope Valley district is one of the first in the county to contract for a similar service by agreeing to share the cost with the Probation Department. District officials said they expect to pay about $9,000 for the remainder of the school year while evaluating the program.

Probation officials said the Antelope Valley officer probably will concentrate on trying to keep students out of gangs. “What he’s supposed to be doing is identifying the ‘pre-gang’ kids and nipping it in the bud,” said Lois Jones, head of the department’s Antelope Valley office.

In the past, the Antelope Valley was considered mostly free of serious gang problems. But gangs and gang violence have become a growing concern, particularly in the past year, prompting the high school district to pass an anti-gang dress code and provide funds for a sheriff’s deputy to patrol the high schools full time.

Frank Esquivel, the deputy probation officer being assigned to the high school district, lives in the Antelope Valley and has worked at the county’s Mira Loma probation camp near Lancaster, officials said. He is slated to start March 1 and rotate among the schools.

Esquivel is expected to oversee fewer than 50 students, visiting their homes and schools. By contrast, regular juvenile probation officers typically handle 150 or more cases, at best see their youngsters for only brief periods each month, and mostly work out of their offices.

The remaining 250 or so students on probation will continue to be overseen by their regular probation officers.