Inmates Draw on Hidden Power

Although it is generally against the rules to run, the young women filed out of their units, four at a time, and broke for the practice field.

In matching blue uniforms and institution-issued sneakers, they could have passed for a high school track team, except for the razor wire, security cameras and stern-faced guards keeping watch over the yard of the juvenile prison.

“OK, ladies, does anyone have any injuries I should know about?” asked Lt. Noel Chesnut, an unlikely coach in his military-style boots and black utility belt jangling with handcuffs and mace. Hands shot up. Some complained of stomachaches, others of sore backs or twisted ankles. After only a couple of workouts, a few said they were too hurt to run anymore.

Aches and pains and calling it quits -- the wards at the Ventura Youth Correctional Facility know plenty about all three.

As California’s only female juvenile prison, the Camarillo complex, set amid stretches of farmland, houses the toughest young offenders in the state. Nearly 200 young women have been sent here for murder, molestation, kidnapping and carjacking. Many arrived with histories of physical or sexual abuse.

At this lockup of last resort, Chesnut hoped his track program would help turn the inmates around by teaching teamwork and discipline. Barely two weeks into training, he was not surprised that a few already wanted out.

“You’re runners now, just be patient with it,” Chesnut, 37, told them, commanding attention with his booming voice and beefy frame. “You’ve got to learn to push through the hard stuff. On this field, I never want to hear you say you can’t do something. I will not allow you to give up on yourselves.”

A standout athlete in high school and college, Chesnut believes running has healing power, that within each stride and each drop of sweat exists the potential for renewal and redemption.

Although few in number, female wards are on average younger than their male counterparts and generally locked up for more violent offenses, according to the California Youth Authority. They tend to have more mental problems than boys and attempt suicide more frequently. And they often arrive wrestling with a range of issues from pregnancies to past physical or sexual abuse.

So when prison officials sought ideas to reach these wards, Chesnut was quick to propose a track team. Along with youth corrections Officer Brad Gibson, he conducted time trials in early May to find the four fastest on each unit to square off in a 400-meter relay. And he began holding practices on a gopher-infested field that dead-ends at the prison’s fence.

For 28 girls, it would be six weeks of learning to sprint and pass a baton, six weeks of running again as if they were kids. And maybe, as they charged toward adulthood, six weeks that would help a few find the strength to stand on their own.

The time trial alone was nearly enough to put Jackie Haggens out of the race. Not because she was too slow -- in fact, she was second-fastest in the institution -- but since arriving last summer, the 18-year-old had believed that there was no one faster. Now a stopwatch indicated otherwise.

“I wanted to quit, because I didn’t want to lose,” said Haggens, who is scheduled for release at the end of the month after serving a year for threatening a gang rival with a shotgun.

Chesnut believed the track team would be a perfect fit for Haggens, who was driven and committed, characteristics she had mainly exhibited with her gang. So he talked her into sticking with it. And he made her a team leader, tapping her brief track experience, at Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles, to teach others knee lifts and baton passes.

It was not easy. Many of the girls had never competed in an organized sport. Haggens turned out to be the perfect taskmaster. She was the first to drop and deliver 25 push-ups when her team fumbled the baton. By the second week, she was leading baton-passing drills, encouraging others to focus and work together.

“It’s like when I practice, I’m not in jail anymore,” she said.

This was not an easy place to feel such release. Several times during workouts, walkie-talkies crackled with emergency calls, making Chesnut or Gibson sprint to a fight or some other crisis. And workouts had to be squeezed into a daily schedule crowded with school, jobs and counseling.

It was especially tough for the squad from the facility’s firefighting crew, which by June had to practice in between dispatch calls as fire season struck early.

Luckily, they arrived with some built-in advantages.

Accustomed to running each day, the firefighting crew came with a work ethic and team spirit forged from their time together on the fire line. While others ambled toward practice after the evening headcount, they sprinted in relay formation. When others giggled between baton passes, they practiced the perfect pass, shouting “stick, stick, stick” as the baton flowed from one runner to another.

“We’ve got a strong team,” said crew leader Victoria Guerrero, an 18-year-old from Woodland, Calif. “We motivate each other. A lot of girls have never had that.”

It was something Guerrero didn’t have either. She never knew her father, and her mother was in and out of prison. By 16, she had already had a long criminal record for drug use and assault. Then two years ago, she took part in a bloody gang-related attack that earned her two years in the juvenile prison.

Now, nearing her August release, all that was left was to say her goodbyes and run one last race with her crew.

“I really don’t care what place we come in,” she said. “Just the fact that we’re out here doing this is an accomplishment.”

After six weeks of training, the relay was over in a flash.

It started on a sweeping asphalt curve that cut between empty red-brick buildings, abandoned when the facility became all-female earlier this year. More than 100 wards, staff members and guards lined the route. Several held handmade placards to cheer their favorites.

Crowded onto the narrow lane were teams from units dedicated to drug rehabilitation, specialized counseling and intensive treatment. There was also a team from a unit for the older population and one representing younger girls.

Missing was the fire camp team, which had been called out days before to battle a blaze. Jackie Haggens ran for a team made up of wards from throughout the facility. It was supposed to be an all-star team but was in third place when Haggens grabbed the baton for the anchor leg. She stormed into second and then ran down the front-runner to win by 5 meters.

Afterward, Chesnut chose the fastest girls to run a 100-meter dash. Haggens won that too, drawing hugs and high fives. Weeks from freedom, Haggens has registered for community college and plans to run track.

“She has made progress the entire time she has been here, but this sparked something a little deeper,” said parole agent Kathy Torres. “Before, her primary focus was her gang. Now she has more belief in herself. I think the odds are in her favor.”

The odds are long for a lot of these women. Prison officials said most will get out and return to their neighborhoods and face the same challenges that brought them here. The question is whether they’ll be any better off when they leave.

At an awards banquet weeks later, Chesnut and others reminded them all of what they had earned, handing out ribbons and certificates and team photos, just like they’d get if they ran high school track.

“This experience is not just about you guys running a couple of meters,” CYA Supt. Eugenia Ortega told them. “What you accomplished out there is phenomenal. It’s about character and commitment. Take what you’ve learned and build on it.”

Rachel Smith plans to do just that. The 20-year-old from the Bay Area city of Concord hasn’t been home in four years, bouncing in and out of juvenile halls and group homes before landing at the CYA two years ago for assaulting a group home worker. Fueled by gangs and drugs and a violent rage, Smith said she spent her youth fighting anyone, for any reason. And she spent her early time at the juvenile prison fighting the system anyway she could.

Smith says she is not the same person anymore. She earned her general equivalency diploma in 2002 and has been enrolled in a college program. She learned a trade by working on the facility’s roofing crew. And now, set for release at the end of the month, she has a blue ribbon for the relay. “I’m just glad that I pushed myself,” Smith said, crediting Chesnut with providing direction. “It’s easy to give up, but he wouldn’t let me. I have gained so much from being here; I really think this place saved my life.”