Vital Volunteers : Tutors Offer Guidance to Youths at County Probation Department Camps

Every week, Leandre Miles writes to Antonio, a 15-year-old convicted robber who lives at home in South-Central Los Angeles, telling him about her life in college, her job and the probationers she tutors at Camp Kilpatrick in Malibu.

For eight weeks last semester, Miles helped Antonio with his school work and offered him advice and friendship when he was incarcerated at the juvenile probation center.

“Sometimes he calls back and says, ‘I’m OK, I’ll see you soon,’ and things like that,” said Miles, a 24-year-old teacher who also takes classes at Pierce College. “But I worry about him.”

Despite efforts to track youths such as Antonio, 43% of juveniles released from Los Angeles County Probation Department camps are later convicted of new crimes, according to a study by the California Youth Authority.

But probation officials say that number might be even higher if it weren’t for the more than 2,000 volunteers who work at the county’s 19 camps each year.

The camps provide an option to sending about 4,500 juveniles a year to the harsher, more crowded and more expensive California Youth Authority or releasing them.

Staff for the department has been cut as state and county legislators grapple with shrinking budgets. This year, faced with an estimated 16% cut, the Probation Department is considering closing the camps.

Probation Department spokesman Craig Levy said the student volunteers are invaluable.

“We don’t have the opportunity any more to provide the intense, one-on-one attention to these kids, many of whom have never had it,” he said.

About 70 students come to Camp Kilpatrick from Pierce, UCLA and Pepperdine University once a week to visit their assigned inmates, many of whom know nothing about college.

One of Miles’ new pupils said if he visits USC near his home he is usually escorted out by campus security. “I don’t have such a good idea about college,” said 15-year-old Lee, who is serving time for car theft, assault and vandalism. “But when (Miles) talks about it, I think, ‘Damn, I’d like to go there.’ ”

Don Barr, who coordinates the volunteer program at Camp Kilpatrick, said he gives students strict instructions not to mail anything for the boys, to be careful about what reading material they bring in, and, above all, to use common sense.

“More and more, these kids are being sent here for crimes against other people--sometimes violent crimes,” Barr said. “So you have to be careful.”

Barr said he can’t remember a behavior problem during a tutorial session. He said there seems to be less need for discipline on the scheduled volunteer days.

“I think beforehand the kids don’t want to risk missing the session,” Barr said. “And, afterward, I know they feel pretty good about themselves.”

UCLA sophomore Jamala Gathier said she knows she can’t change her students’ whole life. But during her regular Wednesday evening tutorial with Michael, a 14-year-old serving time for robbery, she said: “But we can spend some time together, as friends.”

Michael, staring at a math problem, said: “I can tell her things I can’t tell the staff. I can tell her things about, you know, my personality.”

Barr said the boys feel comfortable with college students who are closer in age and who are not in charge of discipline. The 25-year Camp Kilpatrick veteran also said that during the decade he has overseen the program, he has watched college students learn alongside the boys.

“When (college students) first get here, most of them have only seen movies and read stories about these kids. These are the real ‘Boyz N the Hood,’ ” Barr said. “I think a lot of the college kids come here and find out they don’t want to do this kind of work. You might be getting A’s in sociology but, after coming here, decide that what you really want is something more along the lines of a business major.”

Miles, who teaches at Hale Junior High School in Woodland Hills, started tutoring as part of her American social problems class at Pierce last fall.

“I started doing it because it was either do the tutoring or write a 20-page term paper,” Miles said. “But it’s probably the thing I’ll remember most about the class and, maybe, about the school.”

Larry Horn, who teaches the social problems class, said he tries to help his students understand what led many inner-city youths to join gangs and get in trouble. The youngsters have not learned to delay gratification, he said.

“What Pierce students have that the kids at the camps don’t is a sense of some power over their own lives,” Horn said. “They are willing to postpone what they want now because they believe that it is possible to achieve something better down the road.”

For Miles, the job has both rewards and frustrations.

“I do it mostly because they make me laugh,” Miles said, gesturing toward her two new pupils. “But it’s frustrating sometimes, especially this one who keeps getting into fights.”

Rodney, a 15-year-old serving time for auto theft, looked up from his math homework. “I don’t know what happens. I just get angry sometimes,” he said. “(Miles) says I need to learn how to control my temper, how to be more mature and stop acting stupid. But then she goes away and it all happens again.”

But Miles doesn’t go away for long. Like many students, she continued her volunteer work after she met the class requirements. “I guess I’ll keep doing it,” Miles said. “They keep giving me kids, so I guess I have to keep coming back.”