INNOCENCE LOST AUTHORITIES (Second Of Two Parts)

Struggle To Make Teen Smugglers' Punishment Fit The Crime

EL PASO - The sudden rise in teenage drug smugglers along the
Southwest border has stirred a debate over how to punish those who are
caught. As it is, most get probation, not exactly a tough statement
against illegal drugs, some critics say.

"If it were up to me, I'd revamp the system to make it less attractive
for juveniles to get involved with drug smugglers," said Rogelio Soto,
chief of the Val Verde County Juvenile Probation Department in Del
Rio.

Indeed, something seems awry when kids who smuggle 50-pound loads of
marijuana are let go. Yet jail and adult sentences often do juveniles
more harm than good, youth advocates and others say.

"You can't just lock up a kid. And you can't treat all of them exactly
the same. It's all case by case," said Dave Contreras, a prosecutor in
the El Paso County attorney's office.

The challenge is separating the wide-eyed, innocent, remorseful kids
from the hard-core offenders who have no desire to change their ways.

Jorge, 16, falls into the latter category. He grew up poor in the
rugged Mexican state of Michoacan but figured out one thing quick:
marijuana means money. So he became a smuggler.

Police first caught him moving a load of pot when he was 11 years old
and locked him up for eight days, he said. Jorge kept at it, grew his
own field of marijuana and made enough money to buy a house and a
pickup truck all without doing serious jail time.

Now serving 12 months at a Ciudad Juarez juvenile jail after police
nabbed him with 63 pounds of marijuana, he's had time to think. And
his mind is made up: Once he's 18 and faces the risk of adult jail
time in Mexico, he said, he'll hire his own crew of boys to do his
dirty work.

"If you're not afraid and you have heart, everything comes out OK," he
said.

At the other end of the spectrum are kids like Rafael, also 16. Just a
few weeks ago, he said, a childhood friend took him to meet some
strangers who asked him to drive some drugs across the border for
$300. He said he needed money to fix his car's broken window, so he
agreed.

Customs agents in El Paso stopped him and found 161 pounds of
marijuana. He was sent to a juvenile jail and said he feels terrible
for letting down his family, Jehovah's Witnesses.

"I did them a bad turn," the teenager said, crying. "I feel so bad. I
want to be forgiven for causing so much anguish."

Like Rafael, many young smugglers are first-time offenders. Mr.
Contreras recalled the case of a 15-year-old El Paso girl, a member of
the National Honor Society. One day last year, she told her mother she
was going to Juarez to buy Christmas decorations. Instead, she picked
up "about 100 pounds of grass" and tried unsuccessfully to sneak it
across the border.

For her and others who "do something stupid and it's a first offense,"
jail isn't the answer, Mr. Contreras said. The girl finished probation
early, completed community service and quickly got her life back together.

Adult trafficking bosses, not juveniles, are the ones who ought to be
punished, he said. "I wouldn't doubt it if they'd send their own
mother across the border with drugs. Greed fuels the drug business."

Smuggling organizations target El Paso because it is one of the
busiest of the Southwest border's 39 crossing points. About 70 percent
of the teen traffickers arrested there are boys.

Few are "criminal types," said Karen Perez of the El Paso County
Juvenile Probation Department. "We see a lot of kids with no criminal
history and no real problems at home or at school."

Apprehended juveniles who are U.S. citizens have outnumbered Mexicans
154 to 81 in El Paso since 1997. Mexicans arrested in Texas are most
likely to be returned to their country to serve probation, saving the
state an estimated $100,000 a year, officials say.

Probation officer Rosa Mara Aguirre said 28 of the 29 juveniles she
currently supervises in Juarez were caught smuggling drugs.

"Many are students, and for them $100 is a lot of money. Just imagine
how they react when someone offers them $700," she said.

Teens found guilty of a felony drug offense in Texas must serve a
minimum of one year in jail. Hard-core offenders 14 and older can be
tried as adults and get up to 40 years in prison, though such cases
are unusual.

"Generally speaking, there is a lack of punishment for younger
couriers," said U.S. Customs Service Commissioner Raymond Kelly. "It's
a bit of a dilemma."

Of the 235 teen traffickers arrested from January 1997 to April 1999
in El Paso County, 98 received probation and 63 others had their cases
dropped or dismissed.

Only 17 were sent to juvenile detention. The rest of the cases were
either pending, combined with other cases or otherwise disposed of,
county statistics show.

Mr. Contreras defended handing out probation, saying it's far from "a
slap on the wrist."

"Adult probation is a cakewalk, anyone will tell you. Juvenile
probation is a lot more restrictive. You're not walking around
scot-free. There's counseling, community service, court costs. A
15-year-old doing all that, it really sends a message home."

Minors arrested in Mexico often serve a year in juvenile detention.
Most return to their homes and rarely get into trouble again, said
Cristina Ramos, a supervisor at a juarez teen jail.

Adriana, 16, from the Mexican state of Sinaloa, said she smuggled out
of sheer desperation. Her father had died at 61, after which her
mother and eight brothers and sisters no longer had a source of income.

A friend offered her a quick 6,000 pesos about $650. All she had to do
was take a 46-pound bag of marijuana from Sinaloa, on the Pacific
coast, to Juarez. Mexican police caught her at a highway checkpoint.

"All I wanted to do was to help my mother," said Adriana, who is
serving a 10-month sentence in a juvenile jail. "But landing in jail
turned out to cost more than I was going to make. I just didn't think
things through."

Others begin planning their next smuggling operation even before
leaving jail.

"These kids make so much money. It's hard to convince them to work for
less," Ms. Ramos said. "They can make $1,000 in a single day. I don't
even make $1,000 in a month. They say, 'You're crazy for working for
such low wages.'"

Meantime, the river of drugs continues flowing northward.

American anti-drug agents say 55 percent of the cocaine, half the
marijuana and 20 percent of the heroin consumed in the United States
is thought to come across the Southwest border.

No one knows exactly how much is brought across by young smugglers,
but agents doubt that it could be more than 15 percent of the several
hundred tons of drugs that make it in every year. Many large-scale
traffickers hide their illicit cargo in tractor-trailers, ships and
freight containers, agents say.

Agents say the number of juvenile trafficking arrests nationwide rose
from 325 in 1997 to 449 last year, but it remains a rare offense.

Only 3,045 or 2.9 percent of those in juvenile jails in 1997
nationwide were traffickers or drug dealers, the Department of Justice
said. Murderers were only slightly less common, at 1.8 percent. Most
incarcerated juveniles were in for theft, robbery, assault and parole
or probation violations.

In Texas, fewer than 2 percent of youths sent to juvenile detention
centers are classified as "controlled-substance dealers," which
includes both traffickers and street dealers, statistics show.

Still, U.S. agents expect the number of arrests to continue to
rise.

During one night along the southern frontier in El Paso, veteran
Border Patrol Supervisor John Hubert was short 11 agents and had just
24 men and women to watch nine miles of border.

"Our operation, well, you could equate it to a prevent defense" a
strategy football teams resort to when the other team seems to be on
the verge of scoring. "We're still in the game. But there's no doubt
in my mind someone is coming across with dope right now. We get the
ones we see."

Some traffickers sneak across the border, then make their way north
through the 125-year-old labyrinth of storm drains and sewers that
crisscrosses El Paso.

Others play the odds, driving across and hoping customs agents won't
catch them.

"There's no shortage of folks in Juarez who will drive a van from El
Paso to Chicago for $500 or $1,000," Border Patrol Supervisor David
Ham said. "The money's there, and there's a reluctance to prosecute. I
don't foresee an end to it."

Many teens see little wrong with smuggling drugs, especially
marijuana, said Ms. Perez of the El Paso County Juvenile Probation
Department.

"So many kids see smoking marijuana as a fairly normal thing," she
said. "They don't think much more about bringing marijuana across the
border than they would a load of cigarettes."

Expecting law enforcement to come up with a miracle solution isn't
realistic, said J.J. Lopez, chief Customs inspector in El Paso.
Teachers, parents, police all of society must get involved, he said.

"We'd better be willing to pay the price, whether that's waiting a
little longer in line when crossing the border, getting involved with
your children, whatever it takes," he said. "We're dealing not only
with the well-being of our children, but a whole nation. That's what's
at stake."