Getting in Step

No more push-ups. No more in-your-face commands. No more early morning wake-ups.

Miguel had a plan to escape from the boot camp for young criminals and he wanted some company.

When the guard was out of earshot, he told a few guys on the work crew at Lake Cachuma that they could steal a truck he saw on a nearby ranch. They could be in Santa Barbara in 20 minutes, on the streets of Ventura County in an hour.

“Come on, man, I can get you out of here,” the 15-year-old Oxnard gang member told them. “Let’s jam.”

Jess, a 17-year-old recovering heroin addict, thought it over.

The days were long and hard: Mornings spent swinging a pick or heaving a shovel. Afternoons poring over books. And all day long the endless muscle-burning series of push-ups, squats and jumping jacks.

But he had second thoughts about the escape.

Jess had once clipped off an electronic monitoring bracelet around his ankle and skipped out when he was under house arrest for a drug violation. He lived for weeks on the run until he was picked up for shoplifting.

Miguel’s offer was tempting, but the problem is you always get caught, Jess thought. They always get you. I want out--but not that much.

Fernando was also enticed by the offer.

The 16-year-old Oxnard gang member had always surrendered to impulse. He quit high school after only two weeks, he used drugs when he wanted, he left home after fights with his parents.

*

But boot camp had changed him. When the detention officers got in his face and shouted orders, Fernando suppressed the urge to punch them; he held himself in check.

Now he was a month into his sentence, and if he kept it together, he would be out in two.

Why risk getting caught and locked up for a lot longer?

For the first time in a long while, he thought about something before leaping into it. Escape just seemed stupid.

Miguel left with two other youths--but without Fernando or Jess.

They found out later that Miguel stole the pickup truck and dropped off one of the youths in Santa Barbara and the other in Ventura. Both were caught within a day or two, but Miguel was on the loose for nearly a month, before being picked up by the Oxnard police just before Christmas. After the new year, Miguel was sentenced to six years in the California Youth Authority.

Fernando didn’t get why Miguel had even tried to run. This is a privilege to be here, he thought. It’s an opportunity.

A Commitment to Follow-Up

An opportunity.

Fernando had dropped out of Channel Islands High School two years ago. Now he was talking about what he would have to do to get back in. He even dared to mention college.

Could this trendy experiment be working?

Opened in October the Tri-County Boot Camp is an alternative to Juvenile Hall and other standard facilities for youthful offenders.

For politicians, judges, police and social workers, it is a way to let the public know they are tough on crime. It is also advertised as a cheaper alternative, but at $2,500 for each boy each month, it isn’t much cheaper. A month at the California Youth Authority costs about $2,800.

The savings come chiefly from providing more space without building a new juvenile jail. And, officials hope, in preventing the boys from returning to lives of crime by giving them plenty of follow-up attention.

For the boys, the boot camp--shrouded by oaks and pines in the back country of Santa Barbara County--is a test of endurance and temperament. At most, it would turn them around permanently; at the least, it would rigidly structure their chaotic lives for their 120-day sentences.

“I think it will work,” said Carol Hurtt, a division chief at Colston Youth Center and the Juvenile Restitution Program in Ventura until this month. “I think we are trying to do this a little differently than some of the other boot camps out there that have frankly been failures.”

*

Studies indicate that boot camps are no more effective than conventional detention. In either case, about 70% of the inmates never return to jail. An added 22% return once or twice, and about 8% are considered hard-core offenders who keep breaking the law, according to a 1994 Orange County survey.

The biggest question is what will happen when the boys get out, said Superior Court Judge Melinda Johnson, who until January was the presiding judge of Ventura County’s Juvenile Court. Some will make it and some won’t, she said.

“We only have them for four months, and that’s often not enough time to overcome all those years of what they have grown up with,” Johnson said.

To help them with the transition, the boys are supervised for as long as six months after leaving the boot camp--crucial help not available in every program. Probation officers are given fewer clients--and thus more time with the boot camp graduates.

What’s more, the kids picked for Tri-County Boot Camp--from Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties--are not considered toughened criminals. They committed nonviolent offenses and seem redeemable.

Still, they had been out of control at home and at school; by choice or by circumstance, they lived without rules, routine or effective guidance.

“Here they have a routine of school and work for four months,” said Alan Bolender, the camp’s supervisor.

Bolender uses a simple philosophy: “A tired kid is a kid that’s easier to work with.” Hard work and routine go a long way toward reforming youths.

The camp is not meant to be a Marine-style training facility where kids are broken down to be built back up, Bolender said. Instead, it’s supposed to be a place where counselors and detention officers teach leadership, mutual respect and family responsibility through strict discipline.

“I have confidence these guys are all going to make it because they know how to live on the streets,” Bolender said. “They know how to live by their wits.”

But that does not mean that the staff members shy away from pushing the boys.

“You put pressure on them, not to break them, but to see who they really are,” said detention officer Bernard Carreira, a former Army drill instructor and minister who felt a calling to work with delinquents. “When the squeeze is on them, they can’t hide.”

It’s All About Self-Control

The 17-year-old car thief known as R.E. was ready to explode, and he didn’t mind if Carreira saw it.

He wasn’t exactly hiding it.

Who else would try to stare down the tough old guy while everyone was supposed to be standing at attention in front of their bunks?

Besides, the Ventura boy had been challenging the staff ever since the Marine recruiters had told him his asthma would keep him out of the Corps.

“Hit it and give me 20, Mr. E,” Carreira ordered.

Right, thought R.E. I’ll give him a hundred if he wants.

But what do they expect from me now? he wondered.

I can change my behavior, but I can’t change my asthma. It’s not something I have control over. They just say no, you can’t go in. . . .

Even across the barracks they could hear R.E. swearing, just barely under his breath. Every push-up protested the unfairness of it all--of the Marines, of Carreira, of this stupid boot camp, of the whole system. It would be easier to stay a 17-year-old gangster, definitely a lot easier.

*

On the outside, if someone screamed at him like the detention officers, he would have been throwing punches. But at boot camp, it was all about self-control, restraint and respecting authority, whether you wanted to or not. At boot camp, they kept telling you how this was your last chance, like they were doing you some kind of big favor.

They can keep their favors.

For R.E., self-restraint never came easy.

The teenager had a long record for such things as fighting with cops, stealing cars and carrying a gun. Before his last arrest he had drunk so much vodka, he almost died in the hospital from alcohol poisoning. On the way, he fought with the cops taking him there. Then they shipped him to boot camp.

At the camp he was slipping up too. He had gotten into loud arguments with Carreira and other staffers, and a pushing match with another camper. At one point they took him off work crews because he kept getting into trouble. He just couldn’t contain his anger.

After the push-ups, Carreira called him over and chewed him out.

It was R.E.’s third “long form” that day. It was some sort of camp record. Instead of earning days off for good behavior, R.E.’s anger was ensuring that he would do his full sentence. There was a chance he wouldn’t be allowed to graduate when he finished his sentence, possibly hurting his chances at getting a referral for a job when he got out.

With his head bowed, R.E. skulked over to the office by the barracks and shut the door behind him. He crumpled to the floor. It was his time to cool down.

On his back, his knees up and his arm covering his face, R.E. lay there. Next door, the 39 other boys were counting off a booming cadence for jumping jacks. Suddenly, R.E.’s 120-day sentence seemed as if it would never end.

At an afternoon math class a few days later, the tape-recorded Beethoven symphony was driving the boys mad.

One of them whispered angrily to a buddy, “This music--they’re trying to brainwash us!”

Jess huddled over his math test. Under his desk, he bounced his leg to some unheard crazy rhythm and puzzled over fractions.

It was all something he had learned before but forgot. Like most of the other boys--all dressed in the same uniform of drab brown pants and polo shirt--the Santa Paula gang member hadn’t been to school in a long time. It had been nearly three years.

All he could remember was how he would stare at the blackboard a lot and daydream.

Nobody in this math class could sit still. A few guys were counting on their fingers or audibly counting to themselves. Some were looking at multiplication tables, or erasing answers and penciling in others.

R.E. raised his hand. He had a question about his division test.

He had been struggling with simple math problems because he hasn’t been in school in almost three years. He was kicked out of high school for carrying a gun and sent to a continuation school. He eventually just stopped going.

*

Math teacher Jeff Dominelli tried to help R.E., who had raised his hand for about five minutes.

Dominelli tries to help all the boys, giving each of them the basics: adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing.

He teaches fractions. He gives them word problems.

When they do well, he rewards them by playing 1950s rock ‘n’ roll or Motown.

“They just love that stuff for some reason,” he said. “Like they all grew up with their parents listening to it or something.”

Answering a boy’s question about fractions, Dominelli used a basketball analogy.

“OK, so if the buzzer sounds the end of the third quarter, what fraction of the game has gone by?”

A few of the guys rolled their eyes.

“Man! You can’t compare everything to basketball!”

Forced to Spend Time Usefully

It was dark, but the day was not yet over.

The boys stood in the cold outside the barracks in formation, waiting for orders.

They were ready to crawl into bed after a morning of backbreaking work and then a mind-numbing afternoon of remedial math and English. But they still had three hours before lights out.

First they hit the asphalt for 30 push-ups. Then they broke into squads with one group left outside for marching drills and the rest sent inside the warm barracks for homework and group counseling sessions. After about 30 minutes, the squads would switch.

This sure wasn’t Juvenile Hall, where the boys would spend just two hours in school and then kill time watching television, talking to friends or simply hanging out, waiting for their cases to wind their way through the juvenile court system.

At boot camp, they were allowed to watch television only for a short time on Sundays.

To keep up or work off demerits, they were forced to spend much of their free time doing homework or extracurricular reading. Fernando worked off several demerits by writing a book report on “The Hobbit” and another on John Grisham’s “The Client.”

With no television, and prohibitions on talking with their fellow campers during most of the day, a few of the boys read books cover to cover for the first time in their lives.

“The boys that have been here for a while really start to read,” said detention officer Chris Rojas. “Some have never spent any time reading, and here at the camp they get their first taste of what a book can do for you.”

But they can’t read just anything.

One morning detention officer Carreira inspected lockers and found a magazine called Vibe that focuses on hip-hop and rap music.

*

“I see partially clothed women. Ads for cigarettes. Ads for alcohol,” he said raising the pages above his head. “This, gentlemen, is trash and will not be tolerated. Any reading material will be placed on the reading shelf by staff. If the staff don’t put it there, you don’t read it.”

Along with the old National Geographics on the reading shelf are Louis L’Amour westerns and spy novels. There are also an old hardback copy of “Moby Dick,” a few Bibles and five dictionaries.

Jess finished “The Last Mission,” an action book about the Air Force. He then started a Stephen King book and one titled “Viva Chicano.”

For the first time he could remember, the recovering heroin addict felt healthy. He was even enjoying schoolwork.

His English as a Second Language tutor, Myra Rueff, helped him out. When his favorite aunt died and he was not allowed to go to the funeral, Rueff listened to him.

“That was kind of hard, but she talked to me about it and helped me,” he said.

Her support sparked something in him. One week he received a gold--the highest score for work and behavior--and a Student of the Week award.

“I’m real proud of it. My mom is real proud of me. I never got anything like that before,” he said, showing off the certificate.

Wondering Which Way They Will Go

In English class, Jaime, a 17-year-old gang member from Santa Paula, worked on his poems.

They were a release for him. He sent them to his cousin, who tried to get them printed in her school’s yearbook.

One was titled “Nowhere But Camp”:

Brush my teeth.

Three minutes in the can.

A few more listening to the man.

Institutional life wasn’t new to Jaime. He had been to Juvenile Hall 16 times.

He wound up in boot camp after trading a handgun for some marijuana. At the time, he was on probation for graffiti convictions.

On Saturdays, a priest came to the camp. Jaime and six other boys would study and pray. Jaime studied for his Communion. He knew it would make his grandmother happy.

Before he was picked up the last time, things had been going pretty well. He was getting along with his parents for a change. He had a good job at a fast-food restaurant, and he and his girlfriend were happy.

Then he was arrested--again.

He thought boot camp would be like summer camp. He thought they would have a pool and everyone would sit around campfires and talk.

His first day, he complained to the camp nurse, Beverly Alexander, that he could never sleep while he was at the hall.

“You’re going to be pretty tired up here,” Alexander told him.

It was a lot harder than he thought. But at least he was earning credits for school. When he got out, he would get his GED. Then maybe he would go to a technical school in Oxnard and learn to repair computers.

Meanwhile, he had his poems.

In “What Way Will I Go?” he compared himself to a bullet being loaded and fired back into the community:

I know I wouldn’t cope and something would remind me I made more money selling dope.

What way will I go?

All the boys were asking themselves that question.

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About This Series

“County Report: Boot Camp Justice” is a three-part series that follows Ventura County teens through the Tri-County Boot Camp that opened in October. Today’s story details the long days of work, school and military drills the boys experience at the rugged camp. County probation officials gave Times reporter Scott Hadly and photographer Spencer Weiner access to all aspects of the camp, but asked that the newspaper not print the last names of the boys there. In one instance, The Times is using a youth’s initials.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

A Day in the Tri-County Boot Camp

6-7 a.m.: Wake-up call and then head count. Squads rotate in for three-minute bathroom breaks, and then head to the mess hall for breakfast.

7-7:45 a.m.: The boys march back to the dorms. Squads rotate in for a second three-minute bathroom break, and then the boys spend 15 minutes exercising and stretching. A detention officer inspects the boys’ lockers.

8-11:25 a.m.: The boys are assigned to work crews and head into the national forest or stay in the camp for cleanup and manual labor.

11:25 a.m.-1 p.m: The boys return to the camp for lunch. Tools are returned clean, and the squads rotate in for a five-minute shower/bathroom break. They dress in their uniforms and stand for inspection.

1-4:45 p.m.: The boys are in class, studying basic English, math, science and history. During each five-minute break between classes, the boys are watched by detention officers as they sit quietly outside.

4:45-5:45 p.m.: The boys return to the barracks, put away their schoolwork and then march to the mess hall for dinner. After dinner they march to the blacktop for marching drills.

5:45-6:55 p.m.: The boys spend about 15 minutes doing military drills and exercises. On Tuesdays and Sundays they can attend religious services. Afterward there is another bathroom break.

6:55-8:30 p.m.: The boys return to the dorms and break into squads for meetings and counseling. They also sit in on 12-step programs for drug and alcohol problems or work on homework at their bunks.

8:30-9:30 p.m.: The boys are allowed to continue working on homework, or read or write letters. Medicine is also doled out at this time. The boys have their last bathroom break and then must brush their teeth. The boys get in their bunks and the lights are turned out.