Day in Court Means ‘Job or Jail’ for Ventura County Juvenile Offenders

Judge Steven Z. Perren looked down at the young man sitting before him.

The 17-year-old squirmed.

“Mom and dad, what’s going on here?” Perren asked the parents sitting nervously in the front row of the courtroom. “He’s developed into a chronic thief who picks on other kids.”

“We don’t know what to do,” the boy’s father said, edging forward on his seat and gripping his wife’s hand.

Perren turned to the teenager.

“What’s going on here?” he asked.

“I guess I’m just trying to impress my friends or something,” mumbled the youth with the freshly shaved head. “I guess I have to impress my parents, not my friends.”

“That sounds good in court,” Perren said, not fooled. “Let’s see some performance.”

This is a typical day in Ventura County Juvenile Court. Unlike adult court, where the goal is usually to punish, the goal in Juvenile Court is to rehabilitate.

Perren ordered the young man to spend 15 days in juvenile hall, and demanded that he knock on three doors a day to find a job when he gets out. He must return to court in 60 days--with a job.

With younger and younger people committing more violent crimes in Ventura County and across the country, pressure to try adolescents as adults is increasing.

But in a Los Angeles Superior Court ruling last February, a judge reaffirmed the purpose of juvenile court in denying a minor a jury trial.

“Traditionally, minors have not been entitled to a jury trial in light of the rehabilitative, rather than punitive, nature of juvenile court proceedings,” Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Gibson W. Lee wrote in his ruling.

With more young criminals crowding the local justice system and a limited number of custody beds, probation officials say they have room for only the county’s most violent young criminals.

In 1997, more than 1,300 juveniles who could have been booked into juvenile hall in Ventura were turned away because of overcrowding, according to county probation chief Cal Remington.

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As a result, judges, including Perren, have said that they are imposing more lenient sentences than they feel appropriate. At the same time, they say they are unable to provide proper rehabilitation options for offenders.

Many of these kids--from scared first-time offenders to seasoned delinquents already hardened by a life of crime--end up in Perren’s courtroom.

“Juvenile Court is where all the kids come,” Perren said. “This is not only the catch-basin, but also the umbrella. The drain receives good water and bad water. We need a variety of drains to route the water. The watershed issue is that we need sufficient resources.”

In the course of four hours one day recently, Perren reviewed the cases of more than 16 children and teenagers. Like adults, juvenile offenders have an attorney assigned to them, while the state is represented by a prosecutor.

But unlike adult court, no witnesses are called, and there is no jury.

The judge talks directly to the defendant.

Often the talk is extremely personal, almost paternal.

On this day the defendants are mostly male, mostly Latino and mostly from Oxnard.

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Some young offenders look like adults.

Others are so short their feet dangle from their courtroom chairs.

Perren said he had a 9-year-old in court recently who was so scared the judge got down off the dais and went over to the defense table and sat down next to the trembling child.

Some juveniles bring their parents, pregnant girlfriends, even their babies to court.

Others come alone.

The hall outside Perren’s court is like a meeting room.

Young men, dressed in oversized shirts and pants, are reunited. They slap each other on the back and walk off with their arms around each other. Young mothers sit nervously, talking to their sons in Spanish.

Until the next one is called in.

The next kid is bigger than most men, and sullen.

No one accompanies him. He is unemployed and lives with his parents.

He is 18, and it’s apparent he has been in court before. This time it’s a violation of probation.

“Why don’t you have a job?” Perren asks.

“Well, I’m looking . . . “ the youth says. Perren cuts him off. “Come on!”

“I applied at Food 4 Less, I’m still waiting.”

The boy’s tough, know-it-all veneer is cracking.

“I just don’t sit at home and do nothing,” he says defensively. “It’s hard to get work. If you’re bald, they look at you.”

“Why don’t you grow hair?” Perren asks. “They’re not going to hire someone who looks like a gang banger.”

“This is how I dress,” the boy snaps back.

“Would you rather get a job or spend time at the hall?” Perren asks.

“How much?” he asks.

Perren ignores him.

“You got 10 days to prove to me you can get a job,” Perren says. “That’s the deal. Now go get a job.”

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Offenders know there is a shortage of space in the system, and that emboldens them, according to judges, probation officers and the youths themselves.

But on this day, Perren says he is able to give the delinquents the sentences he deems appropriate.

Until a 17-year-old girl who is a repeat offender straggles in. She has run away from her group home again.

The bouncy blond with hair piled atop her head knows how to play the judge.

“I’d just like to ask you for another chance to get a job,” she says. “To prove I can do it.”

Perren wants to send her to Colston Youth Center. But she has walked out of that facility twice, and too many other people are waiting for the services Colston offers.

“I’m not sure I trust you,” Perren tells her. “Your word isn’t worth much. You’ve hurt people who love you. You want to walk the streets.”

The girl starts to cry.

Her grandfather says he wants to take her home, but she keeps running away, and he doesn’t know what to do.

Perren puts her in juvenile hall--the harshest of the juvenile facilities. He has no choice.

“If you come back here again, you’ve tied my hands,” he says. “I’ll lock you up for a long, long time.”