KIDS WATCH AUTOPSY UNFOLD IN PROGRAM

Teens Have Brush With Death At Coroner's Youth Seminar

Taking a knife to the lifeless body that lay on a stainless-steel
gurney, the pathologist made a few deft and decisive incisions. Ten
teen-agers, wearing yellow gowns, blue hats and white masks, looked
on wide-eyed, stoically stomaching the autopsy of a woman with a
history of smoking marijuana. "I've never been to anything like that
before," Dennis Borja, 15, of Grand Isle, said after the ordeal.
"I'll try not to die."

Borja and his repulsed peers are among a growing number of youths who
have seen, smelled or heard death as part of the Jefferson Parish
coroner's office Empathy and Awareness Program. The in-your-face
program, designed to show young people the consequences of poor
decisions instead of simply preaching the dangers, has rapidly
expanded since its creation two years ago and is catching the
attention of the national news media as well as judges, parents and
probation officers closer to home.

When Charlene Lauricella, a special projects manager at the coroner's
office, launched the program in March 2000, about half of the
participants were referred by judges. Others were volunteered by
parents, who feared their children were treading a tumultuous road.

Now, Lauricella said, only one or two slots typically are available
for volunteers, for a $25 fee. Many of the other seats are filled by
juveniles ordered to attend the three-hour seminar by judges in
Plaquemines, Orleans, St. Tammany and Jefferson parishes and other
areas, she said.

In 2001, 170 young people attended, up from 157 in 2000. This year
could mark a bumper crop: 80 teen-agers already have been scheduled
through February, Lauricella said.

"As soon as I started it, there's never been a day when we weren't
booked. The main problem is a lot of times we're too booked,"
Lauricella said. "Now we're so filled. Out of 20 kids, 19 are
court-ordered." Ten of those in Borja's group, however, failed to
show up and will be rescheduled.

While the autopsy smacks the teen-agers senses, the seminar also
includes a slide show depicting victims of drug and alcohol abuse,
goggles that simulate alcohol-altered vision, a video featuring
inmates of the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, a substance
abuse counselor, a member of the clergy and TJ, a drug-sniffing dog.

Only youths who are psychologically prepared to participate are
referred to the program.

"We're not trying to scare kids," Lauricella said. "The whole point
we're trying to stress is choices and consequences."

Rodney Batiste, chaplain of the Bridge City Correctional Center for
Youth, said he takes 10 to 15 juveniles to the seminar every other
month. "They got the sense of what life and death are all about,"
Batiste said. "It's an excellent program."

Shantrell Graham, a program director for the Gulf Coast Community
Action Agency Inc., a youth supervision program in Bay St. Louis,
Miss., herds five juvenile offenders and at-risk children into a van
at 5 a.m. each month and makes the two-hour trip to attend the
seminar.

"It's so real to life and direct to these kids," Graham said. "As
long as there are spaces available for me, I'll have kids there."

To accommodate the growing roster, which she limits to 20
participants per session, Lauricella this year began offering the
seminar twice a month instead of just once.

Last year, she received a $35,647 grant from the U.S. Justice
Department to run the program. This year, she received $44,000 to pay
for additional autopsy gowns, hats and masks; folders and brochures;
and other accessories.

The money will come in handy if the program continues to expand.
State District Judge Joel Davis of Allen Parish has invited officials
from five parishes in southwest Louisiana to learn about the seminar
in a meeting next week in Lake Charles.

"Instead of telling them about consequences, it shows them the
consequences of poor decision-making," Davis said. "I really hope we
can offer this to students other than those who have found themselves
in trouble with the law, really as a diversion rather than having to
put them through the juvenile system."