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.