COLUMN RIGHT/ ANNE N. BESSETTE : A Penny-Wise ‘Saving’ With Infinite Cost : The state must not cut funding for L.A. juvenile probation camps. Where will kids in trouble go? Back to the streets?

For many of my fellow conservatives distressed by the growth of government, any defunding of programs, old or new, is victory. Gov. Pete Wilson has declared that Los Angeles County cannot look to the state for funding to keep open the county’s juvenile probation camps, a system with a 60-year history of success in rehabilitating youthful offenders.

For those who regard this as a financial victory, their appraisal is understandable but penny-wise and pound-foolish. And those who regard this as a philosophical victory have forgotten why governments are instituted among men--and why our particular government was instituted: to “establish Justice, (and) insure domestic Tranquillity.”

Eleven years before these words were incorporated in the preamble of the U.S. Constitution, Adam Smith published “The Wealth of Nations,” in which he recognized only three duties of government: national defense, administration of justice and “certain public works.” These “certain public works” were few and narrowly defined, but among them was “education of youth,” to which Smith devoted 24 pages. He reasoned that “(t)he education of the common people requires attention from the state more than that of people of rank and fortune, whose parents can look after their interests.”

Los Angeles County’s juvenile probation camps fulfill fundamental purposes of government in a way that other available alternatives cannot. Youths sent to the camps have committed felonies--crimes for which adults could be sentenced to at least one year in state prison. Judges have three sentencing options for juvenile offenders besides probation camp: California Youth Authority (CYA) prisons for juveniles and adults through age 25, foster care and probation in the community.

The typical camp inmate is 16, has had seven police contacts and three arrests, and is serving time for robbery or assault with a deadly weapon. In fact, nearly half of the camp inmates are serving time for a violent offense. Does sentencing these juveniles to probation in the community or placement in foster care “establish Justice (or) insure domestic Tranquillity?”

The community is best served by incarcerating these youths, but are the youths best served--and is the community in the long run--by sending them to the California Youth Authority? In 1992, judges chose Los Angeles County’s camps 4,500 times. Why? Because these camps have a record of rehabilitation unmatched by the CYA. Their success is due in large part to the presence in the camps of formal middle and senior high schools--the only accredited schools granting full regular high school diplomas in juvenile correction facilities west of the Mississippi.

For many of these youths, probation camp is their first experience with enforced regular school attendance, and their progress can be dramatic. The typical camp student completes nine one-semester courses during the average six-month stay. From 1988 to 1991, 465 graduated as 12th-graders directly out of the court schools program and 130 others earned high school equivalency certificates. In addition to the academic program, most of the senior camps require 20 hours of vocational work and training each week, providing many of these youths with valuable work skills.

The camps achieve this at less cost than either the CYA or foster care.

It’s unfortunate that these camps are not open to the general public. They would have wider support if taxpayers could see the discipline in and out of the classroom--the single-file march from class to class, notebooks in right hand, left had relaxed behind the back to prevent gang signs--and in the (inappropriately named) mess halls. For real inspiration, there is the MOVE program at El Camino School for severely handicapped children in Pomona, where selected inmates from the Afflerbaugh-Paige camp work with youngsters less fortunate than themselves. Best of all would be to attend Operation Graduation this June, where 125 students, including former camp inmates, will receive diplomas.

By next June, there will be no probation camps, no school, no diplomas if Gov. Wilson and the Legislature refuse the county the $30 million needed to keep the program going. Then, juvenile court judges will have only the options of sentencing to CYA or foster homes, at greater taxpayer expense, or or to probation in the community, thereby jeopardizing public safety. But the biggest cost will be silent and unseen--the loss of a proved opportunity for young offenders to find purpose in their lives while paying their debt to society.