Program Finds Success Scaring Youths Straight : Crime: Shortstop uses shock therapy followed up by positive reinforcement to turn around petty juvenile offenders.

They were fresh-faced, scared-looking youths. They didn’t know what to expect as they sat in a dark corner of a holding cell normally used for adult felons. They have no names, no identities.

To the adults looming over them, the 13 bewildered youths were just numbers. They had committed small-time crimes and they were here to pay for it.

“I see a lot of kids like you going in and out of the system,” one of the adults told them in a clipped voice. “When you’re in the system, you’re nothing. You’re treated as a number--a nameless, faceless number.”

To sidestep that juvenile justice system, the youths, who range in age from 9 to 18, had agreed to take part in the Shortstop Program. But now, as they began the first of two classes designed to change their lives, round-eyed apprehension etched their young faces.

The youths, given numbers as identification, were referred to the program because someone believed in them. That someone--a school official, a parent, a police officer or a probation officer--thought they could benefit from Shortstop or its Spanish-language counterpart, Programa Shortstop.

The goal of the programs, which are funded by the Orange County Bar Foundation, is to turn around petty juvenile criminals before they turn to hard-core crimes. It is done mainly by scaring the youths--instilling in them fear of what they face if they do not straighten out. The programs also require parental participation: It shows the youths that someone cares about them.

Launched in 1979, the Shortstop Program has been attended by more than 6,500 youths. The program has had an 87% success rate, which means that about 5,600 first-time offenders stayed out of trouble for at least a year.

Five hundred youths have gone through Programa Shortstop. It was started three years ago and was recognized in July by the federal government as a model among juvenile diversion programs. While following the course of its sister project, Programa also concentrates on showing Latino parents how to crash through cultural barriers and discuss problems with their children.

Both programs use scare tactics to show juveniles the harsh side of criminal life, then follow up with positive reinforcement, letting the youths know they have choices.

The message in both programs is not easy to forget. The youths get the shock treatment the moment they begin the first of two three-hour classes. They are treated as nonentities. Taken into the holding cell behind a courtroom in Santa Ana, they listen to California Youth Authority inmates talk about life behind bars. They sit in one corner, with their parents on the other side of the cell.

At a recent night session, three CYA inmates paced back and forth giving their versions of alleged horrors of the state’s youth prisons. They told of cockroaches in the food, the unanswered screams for help during homosexual rapes, the beatings administered by inmates just looking for fun and the suicides of those too weak to take the abuse.

“After this program, y’all are all going back to your mommy and daddy,” said a 6-foot-7 inmate, who has been in jail more than two years for robbery. “Me, I’m going back to the institution, man, and there ain’t no guarantee I’m gonna survive,” the 22-year-old told the group.

Then came the hardest part of the session. Back in a courtroom, the participants were called one by one to take the “hot seat.” There, under the eyes of their fellow offenders and parents, they had to answer questions about what they did, why they did it and whom they hurt in the process.

No. 17 was a slip of a girl who couldn’t stop crying, her voice muffled through her tears. She stole “five bucks” from her parents, and now they don’t trust her.

No. 8 tried on some sports shoes and ran out of the store in them. He drove away, but was caught. The 17-year-old was still trying to convince his mom and his grandparents that he had never done anything like that before.

Nos. 16 and 24 were homeboys in a local gang. They were here because “some jerk spit spitballs” at them in a movie theater. After the movie, No. 16 slapped the spitter. No. 24 “socked” the pest in the nose--”wham! wham! wham!” Five times.

After class, the instructor spent 30 minutes with Nos. 16 and 24, then set up an appointment for them with a gang-unit detective.

Most of the youths in Shortstop and Programa have committed such petty crimes as shoplifting, joy riding and minor assault and battery. However, the number of juveniles coming to the programs because they are caught in gang-related activities is growing, program officials said.

Many of these would-be gang members are young Latinos not proficient in English. They are referred to Programa.

Both Shortstop and Programa have fans in the law enforcement arena; Programa has gained its recent national attention because it is seen by gang authorities as a successful way to reach impressionable youngsters before they become enmeshed in the gang mentality.

“These kids have been around the blocks a few times and are more sophisticated, even though most are very young,” said Luis Ruan, a county Probation Department youth counselor who works in both programs. “I’m more intense with these (Latino) kids because it takes more to get through to them. They’re harder on themselves and those around them. So I have to be harder on them to get them to listen.”

Programa has also drawn the attention of gang authorities in Los Angeles County. In May, a probation recidivism report, which randomly chose 100 Programa youths who had been through the classes since 1989, found that 78 of them had stayed clean for a year. The study also looked at 100 Shortstop youths and found that 92 of them had refrained from criminal activity for at least a year.

Citing Programa’s success, John Allen, a deputy district attorney in Los Angeles County, said his office is discussing starting a similar program there soon.

“If a program can keep one kid from turning to a gang, that program may very well save one life,” Allen said.

Despite the hopeful statistics, Superior Court Judge Francisco F. Firmat, who chairs Programa, said authorities must be realistic and realize that it “is not designed to change a gang member who is deeply in the gang. What Programa gives is a few minutes of extra attention where the first-time offenders can be swayed from the road to commit crime.”

A significant factor in the success of Shortstop and Programa is the requirement for parental participation.

At least one of the parents of the juveniles must attend the classes with the children and participate in group discussions. The cost is $50 per person, but rates are also set on a sliding scale for families who cannot afford that.

“There is a dynamic between parents and children that is essential to the success of the program,” Shortstop Chairman David Weinberg said. “Parents are an integral part of a child’s development, yet many parents don’t know how seriously in trouble their children are until it’s too late.”

“With Shortstop and Programa, all parents know what their child is doing wrong and what they can do to help them,” he said.

That is where the second session on a different night comes in. While the first is shock therapy, the second reinforces the positive.

After their first disturbing session, the participants are given homework--essays, questionnaires, interviews--and when they come back two weeks later with the completed assignment, they discuss what they have learned. In this session of open discussions with their parents and instructors, the youths get back their identities.

No. 8--”my name is Joe”--has yet to attend that session, but said he is counting the days until then. The way he was treated that night, he felt as if he were “nothing.” He wanted to get his chance to talk and tell his mother he was sorry for hurting her, he said.

The tall redhead, who sports a stud in his right ear, said Shortstop with its inmate speakers and its shocking video images of barb-wire-fenced juvenile prisons scared him.

“You just kind of think that if things had gone further, you could be there some day,” No. 8 said. “It hurts that people don’t treat you as a person. I don’t ever want to be there.”