Lawyers Turn Mentor in Helping Young Parolees

It is the kind of choice a young man feels free to make. Ramon Gonzalez had worked hard and saved up enough to buy the car of his dreams: a souped-up black Camaro with a shiny paint job and flashy rims.

It got a lot of attention from girls on the campus of Cal State Northridge. But it also got a lot of attention from police, who pulled him over nearly every weekend. That was the kind of attention the 22-year-old parolee didn’t need.

“My parole officer wanted me to get rid of the car ... but hey, I’m a young guy. It was my first car. I bought it with my own money. I was seeing nothing but the good things,” said Gonzalez, now 23.

That’s when Van Nuys attorney Van Do stepped in to do a little mentoring.

“Van had to break it down for me,” Gonzalez said. “She told me in my position, that’s not the car that I need. Getting pulled over, getting tickets, that’s not going to help me clean up my act.” He sold the car, he said, “because she helped me see a little bit farther into the future.”

Helping troubled youths chart new futures is the aim of Volunteers In Parole, a 30-year-old statewide mentoring group that pairs lawyer volunteers such as Do with young men and women on parole from the California Youth Authority, the state’s juvenile prison system.

The program grew out of former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Warren Burger’s challenge to attorneys to help stem rising criminal recidivism. VIP lawyers don’t provide the youths with legal advice, money or representation. They serve as role models and sounding boards, guiding their parolees -- most in their early 20s -- through the transition from incarceration to freedom.

Some must learn the simplest things: how to order in a restaurant, apply for a driver’s license, pay a parking ticket, study for an exam.

“It’s not rocket science, but these are things some of them have never done,” said Armando Lopez, who recruits lawyers and matches them with inmates in South Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. (There is a separate office in Pasadena and branches in Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties.)

“It’s really a simple program,” Lopez said. “All we ask is that they spend a few hours together a month. It can be for a cup of coffee, a movie, a baseball game, whatever you do in your spare time. It’s really about exposing them to something other than what they’re accustomed to.”

For Gonzalez, who spent the years from age 14 to 20 locked up for attempted murder, parole was the equivalent of culture shock. “Outside was a whole different world, different values, responsibilities. It was lonely ... scary,” he said. He found it difficult to avoid old friends, easy to slip up and make mistakes.

He won a scholarship, enrolled in college and went to work doing research in a medical lab. Still, he sometimes felt out of place among classmates, “who had these kind of normal lives.”

Do helped him bridge the divide. “She’s good at conversation,” he said, “so we talk a lot, just chitchat sometimes. I watch her to see how she acts, how she makes decisions, how to keep on going when things get tough.”

Like Gonzalez, many CYA wards spend most of their adolescence incarcerated. Almost two-thirds are serving time for violent crimes. Most belong to gangs when they enter, or join for self-protection inside. And, according to a federal study, nine out of 10 will be rearrested within three years of their release.

That’s where the VIP program shines. Only about 14% of parolees matched with mentors have to serve more time. But of more than 1,300 inmates paroled each year in Southern California, fewer than 300 are provided with mentors. And that number may shrink as the program faces state funding cuts.

Program officials hope to make up the shortfall by boosting contributions from foundations, individuals and law firms.

Lopez has judges and prosecutors among his mentors, and private attorneys from just about every specialty, from entertainment to real estate. Some, like Do, mentor more than one youth at a time. And though most CYA parolees are young black or Latino men, the majority of mentors are women; very few are minorities.

“That’s been a little disappointing,” Lopez said. “But I’d rather have a purple person mentoring than have these kids out here alone. And we have truly wonderful people involved.

“You hear all the lawyer jokes, but I’ve had the privilege to meet some really caring lawyers. They don’t get anything out of it -- no community service credit, no bar credit. They do it because they want to make a difference.”

Lopez knows firsthand what a difference they make. He spent seven years in the CYA for his involvement as a 16-year-old in a gang fight during which a rival was killed with a baseball bat. When he was paroled in 1997, he was paired with Pasadena attorney Stephen Ball.

“I figured he’d be this stuffy, old white guy,” Lopez recalled. “But on our second or third meeting he says to me, ‘If you ever get in trouble, I’ll stick with you. If you go back to jail, you can still call.’ I thought that was really cool. Nobody had ever said that before: ‘If you get in trouble, I’ll be here.’ That stayed with me, and it meant a lot.”

And the benefits of mentoring don’t flow just one way. “Ramon has helped me, too,” said Do, who has been paired with Gonzalez for three years.

“I am, by nature, very impatient. Being his mentor taught me courage, fortitude and patience, because Ramon himself is so very patient. He tripped and picked himself up and went on. It is not just him learning from me; it is really the other way around.

“He made me realize that there is that other side of the fence, literally, where people really have no hope unless somebody gives them a hand.”