Can Intense Intervention Be the 8% Solution?

Not all juvenile delinquents are at equal risk of becoming chronic lawbreakers. Of those who get in trouble with the law, just 8% are likely to become hard cases.

It is those juveniles, identified through an innovative Orange County Probation Department program, that are being targeted for intense intervention. It is from among that group that the teen-agers who participated in the Come Together weekend were recruited, most encouraged by their probation officers or counselors to attend.

Sharon P. Latona is coordinator of the department’s 8% Program--which focuses on identifying those teen-agers early on--and is director of the camp that tries to redirect them.

Under the direction of Michael Schumacher, Orange County’s chief probation officer, the Probation Department tracked the criminal activities of 6,500 adolescent offenders since 1985.

The department’s research found that about 71% of those under 18 did not commit another offense during the time they were studied. Another 21% committed a second or third offense. But 8% committed four or more crimes ranging from shoplifting and car thefts to burglaries, armed robberies and fatal drive-by shootings.

That 8% commit more than half of all the juvenile offenses in Orange County, the study found.

Schumacher’s staff tries to identify potential “eight-percenters” from the first time they stroll through the detention doors.

The study found these youngsters often live in poverty and are victims of physical and sexual abuse. Many have parents who are alcoholics, drug addicts and criminals. The worse their home life, the more likely it was they would turn to crime, he said.

The Come Together weekend and its follow-up counseling focuses department attention on those youths who are statistically at the highest risk.

“These kids are on the crossroads,” said Schumacher. “Most are on probation, most have had drug experience and many have problems at home. That is a formula for disaster,” he said. “We are trying to interrupt that.”