Helping Girls Go Straight
Growing up in her Compton neighborhood, Dominique became a gangbanger almost by default. The rough crew she ran with were the only people she thought she could trust; they could relate to being 14 years old and on your own because your mother is in jail on a drug charge.
She is now 16, a convicted felon herself, with a 3-month-old son and enough emotional scars to convince her that hanging out with the wrong crowd may not be a worthy life goal after all. For the last 10 months, her home has been Camp Scott, the all-girl detention center run by the Los Angeles County Probation Department amid the rugged hills and whispering pines in Saugus.
Girls like Dominique are filling up probation camps and juvenile halls at an alarming pace, so much so that Los Angeles officials have turned a formerly all-boys camp in Lancaster into a coed one to absorb the overflow.
Even as overall rates of juvenile crime are declining, girls are making up a larger proportion of youngsters who are arrested, jailed and on probation. Girls under 18 constituted 27% of all U.S. juvenile arrests in 1999, up from 22% in 1986. In Los Angeles County, girls accounted for 23% of juvenile arrests in 1999, up from 19% in 1995.
Nationally, violent crimes committed by girls rose 75% from 1980 to 1999.
The numbers have jolted law enforcement officials, who are shifting from their historical focus on male juvenile delinquents to create more intervention and prevention programs aimed at girls.
In Washington, the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency is creating a National Girls Institute, which will be the first nationwide repository of information devoted to female delinquency and its prevention.
And a recently released report, “Justice by Gender,” issued jointly by the American Bar Assn. and the nation’s largest black legal group, the National Bar Assn., concludes that girls are ill-served at every step of the juvenile justice system.
“The juvenile justice system historically has been built around boys’ problems and the response to girls has been to walk in, paint the walls pink and take out the urinals,” said Meda Chesney-Lind, a University of Hawaii researcher who contributed to the bar associations’ study.
Faced with such criticism, California passed legislation last year mandating that counties establish programs specifically for girls. Los Angeles County, for example, is planning initiatives for the nearly 500 girls detained in its Probation Department’s camp and juvenile hall systems and the 1,300 girls on formal probation. The programs will tackle some of the same issues that face male delinquents--mental health screening, controlling anger, gang intervention--but will emphasize the ways girls develop and learn.
Camp Scott girls, for instance, will get heavy doses of assertiveness, self-esteem and self-defense training. Education about pregnancy, eating disorders, parenting, working in groups and problem solving has been shown to be more effective with girls than boys in reducing behavior problems.
Officials say those efforts will help them sort out critical issues, such as physical and sexual abuse and early motherhood, that can hamper the rehabilitation of girls such as Dominique.
Dominique had never been in serious trouble until the day she stood nervously with her crew staring into the frightened eyes of a stranger they intended to hold up. All they got for their effort, though, was a ride in a police car and a conviction for armed robbery.
Sitting in the Camp Scott day room, wearing the brown fatigues, black boots and ponytail that are mandatory, Dominique has 10 weeks remaining on her yearlong term.
At the time of the robbery she was a month pregnant by her boyfriend, who had been among the group arrested. The charge against him was dropped, but he had warrants from previous arrests and was sent to Camp Paige, a probation camp for boys in La Verne.
The probation camps are considered a midway punishment: more severe than a diversionary program but less harsh than the facilities of the California Youth Authority, where repeat offenders and those considered more dangerous live in prison-like settings.
The girls at Camp Scott, who range in age from 12 to 18, attend school five days a week in a fenced facility where they march in platoons and have military rankings, much as at the boot camps for boys.
But the special issues facing girls are integrated into classes. Girls are asked to talk about abusive home lives and to critique portrayals of women in movies, magazines or literature.
Community-based groups conduct workshops on topics such as domestic violence and explain to the girls how being incarcerated can affect custody of their children, for example, or even health costs. They are reconnected with their own mothers because of findings that much female delinquency is driven by disruptions in that crucial bonding.
The girls are taking a culinary course taught at Mission College, and they are writing poetry. New basketball, volleyball and track teams offer field trips outside the camp, outlets that have long been available to boys.
Dominique has mixed emotions about her own experience here.
Camp Scott has forced her to realize she took much for granted on the “outs,” as the girls call life outside.
“I realize how much I like my freedom, how much I love my mom. My great-grandmother is 85 years old, and I worry about what if something were to happen to her before I get out.
“Now I look back and think, ‘What if it had been my mom or me and my baby?’ ” she said of the holdup victim. “I know I messed up.”
Gang Membership Only One Factor in Arrests
Marsha Levick, legal director of the Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia, said the increased juvenile female arrest rate is partly driven by more girls becoming involved in gang-related activities, either through their boyfriends or in all-girl gangs. But less obvious factors may be more important:
* Girls continue to be arrested at higher rates than boys for such offenses as running away, underage drinking, prostitution and curfew violations.
* There is increased pressure on police to more aggressively enforce domestic violence laws, and they are more likely now to push for the arrest of girls for altercations with family members or boyfriends.
* School-based zero tolerance policies for fighting and other misbehavior are proliferating.
Studies of girls who have been arrested identify the ages 12 and 13 as flash points when many had their first sexual experiences and a drop-off in school achievement. Chesney-Lind said that is a period when a girl’s status depends much more on her appearance than on abilities--with often calamitous results.
“Shoplifting, for example, is a major way girls get into the juvenile justice system, and when you ask what they are stealing, the overwhelming response is makeup and clothes,” she said.
Drugs and/or alcohol often fuel the downward spiral.
For many girls, being in camp represents the first time they’ve been drug-free in a long while, and sometimes a clear head can make all the difference.
“You look at life from a sober perspective, look at what you’re doing to your family and for the first time become concerned about your future,” said Melissa, a 17-year-old with red-blond hair and a blushing face that she admits looks healthy for the first time in years.
Melissa had not lived with her parents and seven brothers and sisters for two years before she was picked up for shoplifting last fall. Because it was her first offense, the judge was going to let her off, until her father stepped in and told him about her drug use. She had been shooting heroin and speed and had missed an entire year of school.
In camp she has earned her high school equivalency diploma and a scholarship to college. When she leaves detention, she hopes to attend a community college and eventually become a kindergarten teacher.
But not all of the girls adjust easily. Some are in their second or third detentions. Many retain an aggressive street edge, a mistrust of authority, an anger directed both outward and inward. Deputy probation officer Angela Menard, 30, noted that there are die-hard members of the rival Bloods and Crips who would be at one another’s throats on the “outs.”
In Menard’s orientation class for newcomers one day, one girl was disruptive, blurting out responses rather than waiting her turn and raising her hand. She fidgeted and chafed at Menard’s attempts to quiet her.
She wasn’t lured into a gang by an uncle or a brother or to make money, she insisted, but because she liked to fight, which made the other girls chuckle. Later Menard revealed that the girl has an infant daughter.
“She’s not in a mind-set to raise a child and it’s going to be very difficult,” Menard said during a break in class. “The front they put on is, ‘No, I’m grown,’ but they’re trying to hide a lot of insecurity.”
As she talked, the girl stared moodily out the window, sucking first one thumb and then the other.
Trying to Maintain Mother-Child Bonds
About 15% of the girls at Camp Scott are mothers, and officials are struggling with how to maintain the bonds between mother and child. One program, called L.A. MOMS, arranges visits between children and their mothers in camp. These visits include sessions to help strengthen relations, but because of a lack of resources, the program is offered only about every other week.
Dominique already was in custody when she gave birth to her son, Elijah Nathaniel. Her mother takes care of the child, and Dominique rarely sees him.
“My mom doesn’t have a car, so it’s hard for her to get up here. But she’s great. I’m so proud of her. We have a close relationship now. She’s nine months clean, she works, and goes to her [support] meetings.”
Being a mother has matured Dominique. In phone calls, she learned that her baby is raising his head, is aware of his surroundings and plays with his toes. She knows she is lucky that Elijah was not put in foster care.
“When I do get out, I know I’m going to have to think about someone else, that if I mess up I’m going to have to think about how it’s going to affect my baby and family,” she said softly.
Probation officials have high hopes that one of the ways they can instill such concern for others in the girls is through team sports. A girls volleyball team was formed last fall, a basketball team this winter, and now the track team has taken hold. Most of the girls had no experience playing organized sports.
Of the 30 volleyball and basketball players who have left Camp Scott, one has been sent back for a violation, camp officials said. Usually, they added, such a group would have seen more recidivism by now.
The girls join the teams based on ability and behavior.
“You’ve got to trust these kids,” said deputy probation officer Christine Sanchez, who is one of two coaches for the girls. “They’re out in the community, and there’s nothing really to keep them from walking away. They heed that trust to not go AWOL.”
Camp Scott took its 14-girl track squad to a meet at Oaks Christian High School in Westlake Village. Judie, 17, stood on the infield in her gray and blue sweats, preparing to run the 100 and 200 meters, the long jump and the relays. The experience had aroused an unaccustomed sense of confidence.
This is her second stint at Camp Scott, after violating furlough and falling back into selling drugs. She was supposed to go to the California Youth Authority, but the judge gave her a break.
“Most times if I don’t want to do something, I just quit,” she said. “But with this I just want to see if I can do it. I’m learning to work with a lot of different people. And people are telling me to do things, but in a good way. I’m taking orders, which I usually don’t do.”
Judie later came in first in her leg of their 400-meter relay heat. Another girl, 17-year-old Carolyn, was quaking before running the hurdles for the first time. She has been in Camp Scott since August for assault and battery. She’s earned three college credits while in camp and wants to study to become a veterinarian.
As the starter told the girls to line up, she yelled to coach Alejandro Torres, “I don’t want to do this; pray for me, Mr. Torres.”
During the race, Carolyn let out a little yelp as she awkwardly cleared each hurdle. At the sixth bar she fell but got up smiling and finishes. Afterward, the other girls crowded around, patting her on the back.
“That was brave,” one of them said, laughing.
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Crime Among the Young
Nationally, juvenile arrests and delinquency cases have decreased for boys but generally risen for girls since 1980. Evidence suggests the nature and causes of girls’ delinquency is often different from that of boys. Los Angeles County is planning new initiatives for girls detained in its Probation Department’s camp and juvenile hall systems, including Camp Scott in Saugus.
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Source: U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
