Pubdate: Thu, 28 Dec 2006
Source: Gilroy Dispatch, The (CA)
Copyright: 2006 The Gilroy Dispatch
Contact:  http://www.gilroydispatch.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3377
Author: Emily Alpert

IT'S A LONG ROAD TO DRUG RECOVERY -- LITERALLY -- FOR  SOUTH COUNTY
JUVENILES

Gilroy - Redemption is a faraway thing for many Gilroy  teens. South 
County's deliquents face long drives or  even longer bus rides to San 
Jose programs that wean  them from drugs and help dim their rage, 
programs they  can't find closer to home. To twist the old adage, 
South County has its pound of teen crime, but barely an  ounce of prevention.

"Young people in Gilroy who are trying to correct the  problems in 
their lives have to go 30 miles north to  San Jose or 30 miles south 
to Salinas, in order to  overcome their problems. Problems they 
experienced in  Gilroy," said Timoteo Vasquez, a youth organizer 
working with Communities United in Prevention, a  grassroots 
coalition in Gilroy.

He's heard the stories over and over, from troubled  teens who want 
to change. But South County offers few  outpatient drug treatment 
programs, no anger management  programs and county probation officers 
send juvenile  addicts to only one residential drug treatment 
program: Advent Group Ministries, in San Jose.

The distance is one more road block to rehab for area  at-risk teens, 
says Karen Fletcher, deputy chief  probation officer for the Santa 
Clara County Probation  Department.

"The transportation issue is huge for minors in South  County," said 
Fletcher. Years ago, the county paid for  bus passes to get Gilroy 
youth to San Jose programs.  Today, after budget cuts axed the 
passes, teens pay  their own way.

It's a frustration to youth advocates, who say it's  hard to steer 
kids straight without the programs they  need close to home. Gilroy 
teens are more likely to  reoffend than other Santa Clara County 
teens: 19  percent of Gilroy's 221 teen probationers went back to 
court for additional offenses from Dec. 1, 2005 to Nov.  30, 2006, 
compared to 13 percent of teen probationers  countywide. Of Gilroy 
teens who committed additional  crimes, 15 percent came back for 
violating the terms of  their probation, compared to 10 percent countywide.

"You really need to supervise these kids to turn them  around," said 
deputy district attorney David Soares,  team leader of the office's 
Juvenile Delinquency Unit.  "If they don't have programs there to 
chemically test  kids and hold them accountable, giving them an 
excuse not to use [drugs], not to hang out " His voice  trailed off.

 From where Enrique Arreola sits at the Mexican American  Community 
Services Agency, the connection is clear.

"Part of their probation requirements are  anger-management programs. 
There aren't many here. Many  of them are forced to go to San Jose - 
and transport is  an issue," said Arreola, director of prevention and 
intervention programs. "I think that's why South County  has one of 
the higher [teen] recidivism rates in the  county."

Even drug-testing facilities are limited to San Jose,  and when teens 
skip their drug testing, they violate  their probation and end up in 
crowded county jails,  said County Supervisor Don Gage.

"There's no services for South County that are adequate  as far as 
I'm concerned," he said. "There's no  treatment beds down here. And 
the problem we're having  is, we're going to have to cut way back 
because of our  deficit.

"We're the ugly stepchild," he lamented. "Nobody thinks  of South County."

The cash-strapped juvenile justice system can't afford  South County 
outposts, Soares explained. Over the past  decade, funds have been 
drained from the system. At a  2004 Community Crime Prevention 
Associates retreat,  youth service providers calculated that 645 
South County youth would have to lose services, in light of  2005 
budget cuts. Two years later, the situation hasn't  improved. Soares 
expects juvenile probation to go under  the knife again in the next 
round of budget cuts, as  Santa Clara County faces a projected 
deficit of more than $200 million.

"The county is acutely aware of the costs of  probation," he said. 
Soares dreams of cloning programs  like the Santa Clara Alternative 
Placement Academy, a  probation-run high school in San Jose. "It's 
hard to  send a kid from Morgan Hill or Gilroy to this school in 
south San Jose. Ideally, we'd have one in South County,  one in North 
County. But it's tough to get the funding,  and the critical mass for it."

Besides, he said, "we only have three juvenile court  judges. we only 
have one juvenile hall and one juvenile  probation department. It's 
difficult to decentralize  that."

A handful of South County programs are aimed at teens'  needs. Since 
September 2006, a teen class, Health  Realization, operated by the 
county's Department of  Alcohol and Drug Services (DADS) meets 
Wednesday  afternoons in Gilroy.

At Gilroy and Mount Madonna high schools, a DADS  counselor is 
available twice a week for on-site  counseling. Group meetings like 
Narcotics Anonymous and  Alcoholics Anonymous also count toward 
teens' outpatient drug rehab requirements, but Fletcher says  that 
many aren't age-appropriate. And for teens with  private insurance, 
Kaiser Permanente offers a range of  treatment options.

"But they're the exception," Fletcher said, "not the rule."

The need is here, Vasquez insists. But the programs  just aren't.
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MAP posted-by: Elaine