2 Ventura County Youths Escape From Camp

Three 15-year-old boys, including two from Ventura County, escaped Tuesday from a newly opened juvenile offender boot camp in Los Padres National Forest.

They escaped about 11:45 a.m. while working with a crew of nine other youths at Lake Cachuma in Santa Barbara County, said Susan Gionfriddo, chief probation officer for Santa Barbara County.

Camp officials continued to search through the night Tuesday with the help of Santa Barbara sheriff’s deputies. Ventura County probation officers also alerted the boys’ families about the escape, Gionfriddo said.

The boys were dressed in work boots, jeans, T-shirts and neon orange sweatshirts, Gionfriddo said.

“Usually in these situations, we find the boys very quickly,” she said.

The three youths are part of the new Tri-County Boot Camp that opened Oct. 1 in the national forest.

The low-security camp next to Los Prietos Boys Camp was put together jointly by Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties and is meant as an alternative form of incarceration for nonviolent juvenile offenders.

The highly disciplined three-month program is meant to divert youths from repeating criminal behavior, officials said.

Each morning, the boys, who range in age from 13 to 17, go out on work crews around Los Padres National Forest. In the afternoon, they attend school. Their day is also punctuated with military drills and calisthenics.

There are about 10 Ventura County youths at the camp, and officials eventually plan to house a total of 20 from the county there. There are 20 other youths from Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.

If caught, the boys will likely not return to the camp and will have to go before a judge to face charges stemming from the escape, Gionfriddo said.