GIRL TROUBLE: AMERICA’S OVERLOOKED CRIME PROBLEM

Given the chance to draw up a policy wish list, San Bernardino Probation Officer Morgan Drew says she would insist that “the parents were made to go on probation with the girls.” In case after case, Drew says she has come to realize that “you just can’t work with the girl on probation. You’ve got to work with the whole family.”

Often, that’s harder than it sounds. One of Drew’s clients is a 14-year-old who asks to be known as Rita. On the streets, Rita is called “Laughing Girl.” That’s strange, because Rita almost never smiles. For Drew’s visit, Rita wears a T-shirt, men’s undershorts and no shoes or socks.

A black electronic bracelet is strapped to Rita’s left ankle, showing that she is under house arrest for petty theft and assault. A readout from the bracelet shows that Rita violated her house arrest 21 times the previous day alone. Impossible! protests Rita’s mother. The child never left the house, the mom says, except to hang wet laundry on the line. That must be what set off the bracelet.

On three previous occasions, Rita was arrested for public intoxication, curfew violation and assault. A week ago, the principal of her year-round school wanted to expel Rita for screaming and knocking over a chair. Drew persuaded the principal that Rita’s explosion represented an improvement, because she hadn’t pulled a knife on anyone.

All of Rita’s relatives are gang members, Drew says. During the probation officer’s daylight visit, a grandmother sits in a chair, watching TV. A teenage male is asleep on a couch, a baseball cap over his face. A toddler with stitches in his head wanders from room to room, wearing only shorts. A man sits in the back of the house, drinking beer. “It’s constant chaos,” Drew says. “You never know who’s home.”

Not long ago, Rita was in a 2 a.m. rollover car accident on the freeway. All the other passengers were gangbangers, Drew explains, and they were all Rita’s relatives. “They’re her family,” Drew says. “It’s not like I can say, ‘You can’t associate with these people.’ ”

In such settings, one of Drew’s challenges is to create consequences that will motivate family members and juvenile offenders alike to change their ways. “If I tell them that if they don’t change, the consequence is that we’ll take their child, a lot of these parents would love for us to take the child,” Drew says. “That’s not a consequence.”

In Rita’s case, Drew recently found a container of the drug PCP in the bedroom Rita shares with an aunt. Rita claimed the drug belonged to her aunt. Drew told the family: “What’s probably going to happen here is we’re going to have to have a whole house search with a dog.” All of a sudden, all the adults jumped. “Now they’re motivated to do something,” Drew says. “Probably to get rid of Rita.”