Good Wishes for ‘Bad Boys’

Bad boys. At Challenger Memorial Youth Center in Lancaster, we house and teach 600 of them. Challenger is a Los Angeles County Probation Department facility. Chances are that a young man has seen the inside of a juvenile court two, three, or even four times before he finds himself incarcerated at Challenger. This facility is not the law’s first line of defense, it is more like the last before the California Youth Authority: the place where the really bad boys go.

The boys are a polyglot group of many ethnic and racial persuasions, some tattooed in truly incredible ways, some relatively unmarked, some products of mean streets, others of too much alcohol or drugs. Car thieves. Gangbangers. Probation violators. Drug dealers. Tough. Vulnerable. Having parents who care and worry. Having no parents. Going to make sure their little brothers don’t end up here. Going to take care of that baby their girlfriend is about to have, or already has. Going to get off drugs or alcohol. Never coming back. Uncle at Folsom, Mom at Sybil Brand.

There is, however, one quality that nearly all of our clients have in common: They are expert manipulators. They can size up a situation in a nanosecond. They can play it any way they want, any time they want. As a teacher, I have seen and even admired this skill many times.

Jorge (not his real name) is nearing expert status in manipulation. He has clear, twinkling eyes and a sense of humor, something that is hard to find in this population. His smile would melt the most hardened heart. He has learned to tilt his head a certain way and use a particular squeaky-falsetto voice to cadge and plead for whatever it is that he needs. Not wants. Needs. He asks how you are feeling today. He admires something you are wearing. He tells the other boys to behave, have respect.

He is more than a little hyperactive. He can be standing up, walking to the pencil sharpener and when asked to sit down he will tell you sincerely that he is sitting down, and that is his honest perception.

A student may tell you that he was just walking down the street, and got picked up for violation of probation. Upon questioning, he might come up with the fact that he had a 12-pack under each arm, and it was 12:30 in the morning, but, man, he was just walking down the street!

But, to return to Jorge. His father is absent but sends money to the family, lots and lots of money. You get a “drug dealer” feeling. Jorge lives with his mother and sisters. He is going to take care of his mom when he gets out, even though he is only 15. He is going to set a good example for his younger siblings. So, what does he need? Maybe a mom. Maybe a dad.

One day Jorge is talking to a classmate, unaware that I was listening. The discussion is about school on the “outs.” His classmate says that he really hates to go to school--doesn’t go, in fact, which is the case with many other juveniles in the room. But Jorge says that he loves school on the outs. It is great. Especially, he says, on the days when his mother is home “all whacked out.”

That is Jorge’s reality. But he has survival tools. Maybe he will be all right.

Then there is another boy, a special education student. An ~individualized educational plan” is required for such students. The state requires a review of this plan every year, involving a special education teacher, parents, classroom teachers and others, such as speech therapists, who are involved with the student.

In our camp situation, a surrogate sometimes acts in lieu of a parent at an I.E.P. conference, perhaps because there is no parent, or because the parent lives too far away to trek to our facility, or because the parent’s work schedule prevents his coming. But this boy’s mother did make it, late and breathless. She related how her car had been totaled in a wreck and she had to rent a car to come from near downtown Los Angeles, a rental costing her $178. At lunch the next day when we teachers heard the story, we were somewhat incredulous: $178 sounded like a lot for a car rental. But then we speculated that the mother probably didn’t have a credit card, so perhaps part of the cost would have been a deposit, maybe at least partially refundable. Maybe she was taken advantage of, since she wanted to badly to come to the conference.

The resource teacher said, “He is really a nice kid.” At this remark, to be honest, there were some cynical comments around the table. “No, really,” she said, “his problems are nearly all because he is special ed, and that is what has gotten him into so much trouble.”

He might be hyperactive, like Jorge, or he might be the kind of student who is confused by too much going on. If the teacher says, “Open your book to page 51. Do problems one through 12. Be sure your columns are straight, and turn in your paper to me when you are finished,” some special ed students may be lost after the first instruction. There are myriad reasons why special ed. students might have run-ins with the law, not the least of which could be lack of success in school.

After the resource teacher made her remark about the “nice kid”, there was a lull as we at the table pondered the mother who loved her child so much. There was an unexpressed feeling among us: Please let him be successful on the “outs” when he goes home.

Years ago, at another facility where I worked, a social worker talked about the parenting needs of so many among the juvenile offender population.

Everybody needs a parent. We need someone to give the best Christmas gift, someone who wants to hear about our day at school, someone who can be counted on never to forget our birthday.

One day, the social worker and a boy were going over options for him when he was released. They searched his life situation for grandparents, aunts, older siblings--anyone with whom he could possibly live. After an exhaustive session, the boy looked at her and said simply, “Maybe I could go home with you, Kay.”

What kind of answers can you give to a bad boy?