GROWING UP BEHIND BARS

McCAIN -- The berries were bright red and clustered on an American holly
tree in front of the P.P. McCain Memorial Building. The white blossoms on
the Bradford pear trees were already in full bloom on a cool mid-March day
on the campus of the Sandhills Youth Center.

Don't let the name of the place fool you: Though there's no chain-link
fence topped with razor ribbon and the correctional officers are unarmed,
this is a prison.

A minimum-security prison for youths, for the most part, ages 18 to 21.

The current inmate population is 244. Capacity is 320.

Here, as prison officials like to say, the lives of these male youthful
offenders are ''orderly.'' Or ''structured.''

''We're a full-fledged prison just like any other prison in North
Carolina,'' said Don Wood, the superintendent at the center. Currently,
this is the only minimum-custody prison for that age group in the state.
Due to a decline in the 18-to-21 age group, a couple of prisons in the Cape
Fear region that housed young male prisoners have been converted to adult
prisons in recent months: the Morrison Youth Institution, located in
Hoffman in Richmond County, and the Bladen Youth Center outside White Lake.

Wood said he doesn't know what led to this decline. ''The folks in Raleigh
that control (prison) population say they don't know why,'' he added.
''Predictions were that the population would increase last year. Instead,
it did just the opposite. It decreased.''

As a result, the Sandhills prison picked up 48 inmates from Bladen and a
smaller number from Morrison, Wood said.

If you have ever driven along N.C. 211, just about halfway between Raeford
and Aberdeen in the Sandhills of western Hoke County, chances are you've
noticed a couple of the red-brick buildings through the hardwood trees and
foliage that sit off from the highway and make up the Sandhills Youth
Center. Their architecture varies, as some were built in the 1930s, '40s
and '60s.

Fayetteville's J.P. Smith Sr., who is the center's assistant superintendent
for programs, said he has seen inmates get off the bus and ''get down and
kiss the ground'' after being transferred to this facility.

As he walked through the campus, he looked around and said, ''Very
therapeutic.''

On what was once open fields, the center is located on about 85 acres of
Department of Correction Land. About 55 acres are cleared.

Nearly 300 yards away from the center -- on the other side of the blacktop
- -- is the medium-security Hoke Correctional Center. And about a
quarter-mile down is McCain Correctional Hospital.

In 1939, the main building of the center's complex was built by the Federal
Works Agency to serve as a tuberculosis sanitarium for blacks; the hospital
was once the TB sanitarium for whites.

Smith has been working here the past 38 years.

When he first arrived, it served as the Samuel Leonard Training School, and
operated under the North Carolina Board of Juvenile Corrections and the
N.C. Department of Youth Service. In 1974, the school was turned into a
minimum-security correctional institution for male youths.

At this time, the inmate population is about 70 percent black, about 25
percent white and about 5 percent ''other,'' which includes Hispanic and
American Indian youth.

Wood, who is 54, has run the prison the past seven years. He described his
approach with the inmates this way: ''Fair. Consistent, but at the same
time, fair.''

Several thousand young men have served time at this unit through the years.
As for why most of them ended up here, Smith said, ''Probably more
drug-related crime than any other.''

These are not murderers. Or rapists. Or child molesters. Instead, a variety
of crimes such as larceny, breaking and entering, robbery, selling drugs
and substance abuse put these people in this prison.

The inmates come from all over the state of North Carolina.

With white paint flaking around the window panes, the main building on
campus is beginning to show its age. It is here where the inmates are
housed in six wings and a 14-bed segregation unit. The unit is used for
disciplinary offenses, with their punishment normally lasting from 10 to 20
days, according to Wood.

They mostly sleep four to a room on two metal-framed bunks, and each inmate
has a full-sized locker. Every room has a lavatory, but not all include a
commode. That's because the building was constructed as a hospital.

The freedom of each inmate ''varies with the individual,'' Wood said.
''They earn more and more freedom when they do good behavior.''

This extra freedom shows up recreationally after hours, when inmates can
read, listen to a radio on their headphones, shoot basketball and pool,
play Ping-Pong, work out in the gym, or participate in various religious
and academic programs.

There are inmates who go out every day as part of the center's inmate road
crews. In the course of a day, everybody is involved in either a work or
academic program, according to Wood.

The center has a full-time school, with 132 inmates currently enrolled.
Last year, 83 successfully earned their General Equivalency Degree, Wood
said. Inmates who graduate with a score of 250 or above are eligible to
apply for an Outreach Grant to participate in correspondence study through
the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Fayetteville State
University.

There's a library on site, complete with a couple of daily newspapers and a
magazine rack of mostly old issues of National Geographic. A small section
labeled ''Libro en Espanol'' is available to the Spanish-speaking prisoners.

Books are acquired mainly through a library fund that the prison gets each
year. Some are donated.

Johan de Brigard is the education director at Sandhills Youth Center. She
said she has never felt threatened by the inmates here. ''I'm so proud of
these guys,'' she said. ''I find these young men are very well behaved.
Probably even better than in public education. I'm astonished by the number
of programs the D.O.C. has for inmates.''

There is the occasional fight between inmates. Last year, three reported
incidents resulted in staff injury, when a guard attempted to break up a
fight. Pepper spray is the correctional officers' first line of defense.
They only carry guns when they're seeking an escapee.

With notions of the hard-hitting HBO drama ''Oz,'' a gritty look at prison
life, Smith said, ''Very few sexual kind of reports take place here.''

Wood quickly added: ''There haven't been any reported rapes since I've been
here since 1995.''

After serving their time at Sandhills, probably better than 60 percent of
the inmates have not returned, Wood said: ''I consider it major success
when an inmate from the prison system successfully becomes re-established
in the community and does not re-offend. Does not come back to prison.''