Pubdate: Sun, 13 Mar 2005
Source: Free Lance-Star, The (VA)
Copyright: 2005 The Free Lance-Star
Contact:  http://fredericksburg.com/flshome
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1065
Author: Rob Davis
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?159 (Drug Courts)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

DRUG COURT PROGRAM PUSHES SPOTSYLVANIA TEEN TOWARD RESPONSIBILITY,
ADULTHOOD

For Drug Court Graduate, Life Is Just Beginning

Bass thumps from computer speakers as mother and son dance together,
his hands on her hips, moving in harmony.

Court is an hour away, she is still in curlers, but the rhythm has
grabbed them.

Patricia Lonon has come into her son's room to tie his tie, button his
French cuffs and fold his white silk handkerchief. But now she is
giggling, shaking her shoulders in her navy blue dress, swaying to the
beat. William mouths the lyrics.

Yo mama, show me how you move it! And I'm off the chain!
G-Unit!

It is Thursday, March 3. They have been waiting 14 months for this
day.

On this day, Spotsylvania resident William Milken will go before Judge
David Peterson, who has watched him progress through Rappahannock
Regional Juvenile Drug Treatment Court. And Peterson will dismiss the
charge--a house-arrest violation--that landed William here in the
first place.

Today, William graduates. Today, he leaves the juvenile justice
system. No more second chances.

He fixes two earrings in his left ear, buttons his pinstriped suit and
sprays a thick cloud of cologne in the air. The volume crackles louder
on the speakers. Don't judge me for the mistakes I've made, a song
intones.

It is time to leave. But first, William stands tall before his
full-length mirror, in his white suit with black pinstripes. He pulls
up the sleeve of his jacket, revealing the cuff of his silver shirt.
It's fresh out of the package, purchased especially for this occasion.

He turns to his left, peers at his reflection, and soaks in the
moment.

A grin sweeps across his face. Choosing a path

William Milken is 18 years old, with tightly woven braids that spill
down his head and fall into a pool of aquamarine beads that rattle
like castanets.

He dreams of becoming an electrical engineer. College acceptance
letters--he hopes--are due this month. He'll graduate from Courtland
High School in June.

He is a child on the verge of independence and adulthood. The walls of
his bedroom are covered with a collage of posters and torn magazine
pages featuring rap stars and R&B divas, all tight abs and lusty lips.
But tucked among them are hints of innocence: a pencil tracing of
Shrek, a sketch of a Dragon Ball Z cartoon.

He came here with his family three years ago, so his stepfather could
take a job as a security guard with the Defense Department. He, his
mother, his stepfather and Amy, the family cat, at first crowded in a
one-bedroom apartment near Spotsylvania Courthouse.

William wondered what he'd done wrong. To understand how he felt is to
understand where he came from--and how different life there was.

He grew up in the projects of Newark, N.J., one of America's toughest
cities. Nearly 29 percent of its population currently lives in poverty.

Home was The Garden Spires, a housing project with an airy name that
belies the mayhem around it. William's earliest memories at 175 First
St.: playing tag on the playground, drug dealers standing in front of
his building.

At 11 years old, he joined the Crips, a street gang with Los Angeles
origins. Maybe he was 12, he can't remember.

He does remember this: They thought he was older, he thought they were
cool, he always wanted to join them, and six of them gave him the
beating of a lifetime. That minute, maybe two, was his initiation.

Now, thinking back, he remembers his ribs feeling broken. He says
simply, "It hurt real bad."

He was comfortable, secure, surrounded by his family and his gang. To
this day, William still considers himself a Crip, still considers the
projects home.

For all its problems, Newark is where William became William. Even
though he says he'd never let his children grow up there, it made him
who he is.

"All the negatives are good things," he says. "You don't know what you
want until you see the other side. If you've never been in a gang, you
don't know how much you don't want to be in a gang."

When he was uprooted to the Spotsylvania suburbs, the land of
subdivisions and gated communities framed by farmers' fields, he was
as far from the familiarity of home as he'd ever been.

His first impressions of his new home? "Cow country," he
says.

Everything was changing, and he didn't like it. He was angry. So he
did the only thing he could think of.

He lashed out.

He smoked pot. He punched holes in the walls at home. He fought with
his mom, with his teachers, with his classmates.

When a white girl called him a nigger in class, he punched her. When a
guy William didn't know stared at him in school, he fought him. When
he got into another fight, with another student, William screamed that
he wanted to burn the boy's house down.

First punishment: long-term suspension. Then lockup. Then house
arrest.

Nothing worked. William was angry, and nothing changed it. He
routinely violated his house arrest. Jail was waiting.

On Dec. 4, 2003, William found himself left with one last chance, the
only thing standing between him and an 18-month sentence for violating
his house arrest.

And so he enrolled in Rappahannock Regional Juvenile Drug Treatment
Court. 'My way wasn't working'

William had heard about drug court. He knew a few participants, and he
thought it would be an easy way out of his charges, a way to dodge
jail.

The court is an intense out-patient treatment program for chronic
offenders, with separate tracks for adults and juveniles. The goal,
says Pat Beauchemin, the drug court's administrator, is to address
problems while people are being monitored by the justice system.

Drug court is meant to treat the participants' problem-causing
behavior--not simply send them to jail. Fredericksburg's program,
which began in 1998, was the state's first.

Since then, 145 juveniles have participated. William is the 57th
graduate. The others, who were kicked out of the program or quit,
ended up back in court, still facing their original charges, their
future back in a judge's hands.

Typical participants are in their late teens, possibly in school,
possibly pursuing a GED.

They've used every type of drug available, but marijuana is their
first choice. They're facing criminal charges, possibly drug-related.
Depression, addiction and substance abuse often run in their families.

William, like all participants, forfeited his privacy to the drug
court team in order to participate. An inch-thick manila folder is
stuffed with reports, substance-abuse evaluations and the results of
each routine and random urine test.

And like many participants, he found that the easy way out wasn't easy
at all. At first he still smoked pot, and it showed in his drug tests.
He got locked up twice for skipping school. He joked around during his
group therapy sessions.

"Then," he says, "they kind of get to you."

William says he began reflecting on his life, on his dreams. While
sitting in the shadowy living room of his family's two-bedroom
apartment in Brittany Commons, he speaks candidly about the insights
he gained.

"I was going down, further and further," he says, "and I was happy
doing nothing about it. Your life is falling apart, and you're just
watching it. My way wasn't working. You have to admit it to yourself."

Five months in, he felt different. Everything felt
different.

"It was a like a weight-lifted-off-your-shoulders different," he
says.

He wasn't fighting with his mom. School became fun.

He attended treatment sessions with his mother by his side, made
regular court appearances, went to group counseling.

He watched seven other drug court participants graduate. He remembers
watching them, knowing he'd be up there one day.

When graduates spoke, he listened. A Frederick Douglass quote from a
long-ago graduation speech sticks with him.

If there is no struggle, there is no progress. A fresh chance at
life

As William walks into court one last time, for his own graduation, he
jumps into the air, clicking his heels.

"Happy?" a fellow participant asks.

"You see this smile?" William replies. "I'm going to have to get it
surgically removed."

But on this day of celebration, of slaps on the back and swagger and
snapshots, a tall man in a gray suit delivers a stern warning. Sydney
Williams, who is William's drug counselor, stares through the
courtroom audience, full of parents and juvenile participants, and
locks eyes with the graduate.

To the 18-year-old, he is Mister Williams, a man his mother initially
battled but now admires.

"He's like Yoda," William says later. "You know how all heroes have
that guy? He's that guy."

William bites his lip as he listens, his dark brown eyes fixed on his
counselor.

There's no such thing as a graduation, the counselor says. Just a
beginning. Because drug court officials know that not every graduate
makes it.

They know adolescents have a world of pressures waiting when they
leave the courtroom for the last time. But they know they've given
graduates some tools to cope with temptation.

"It's the first day of the rest of your life," Williams says, standing
at the front of the courtroom. "William, when you leave from this
courtroom, those invisible boundaries will be removed and you will be
on your own."

He points to the off-white door behind him, behind the judge's bench,
through which four drug court participants have been sent today.
That's the door to lockup.

William has been through it before. It's still waiting, the counselor
says, as his warning continues.

"If you don't do the things that have been set forth for you--your
plans for college--it will not happen, no matter how much you dream,
how much you rap about it, how much you sing about it. Your reality
lies behind that door.

"Some people in here are betting against you. You've had your Get Out
of Jail Free card.

"You're an adult now."
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MAP posted-by: Derek