CAN THIS MAN BE SAVED?

Christmas was quickly approaching. Robert West needed cash fast. With a
house full of kids, a wife and, lacking even a high school diploma, West
was locked into one dead-end job after another.

He knew how to get the money, though. The Glendale Heights man would fall
back on a trade he had honed since a kid.

"It really was just driving me back to the only thing I could do - selling
drugs," he said. "I had all this pressure. It was an easy opportunity."

West set up a few deals. He sold crack cocaine, each time profiting about
$150 an ounce.

After a few exchanges, his luck finally ran out. He was busted December
1997 in Carol Stream. At 22, it was the first time he'd actually been
caught selling drugs - a craft he mastered by the age of 14.

West was locked up for 90 days. Later, he violated parole by missing
appointments with his probation officer.

Faced with more jail time, he was given an alternative in DuPage County's
work camp for non-violent offenders.

DuPage Sheriff John Zaruba's goal is to keep youthful offenders from
becoming repeat criminals through education, counseling, physical labor and
years of follow up.

The work camp is for non-violent offenders, ages 17 to 25. The group is
targeted because there is a 17 percent increase in youthful arrests in
DuPage County since 1996. That number is expected to rise to 26 percent by
2010.

West, now 24, turned himself over to authorities a week ago. His oldest
daughter, Tiffany, asked where he was going.

He chose not to lie to the 4-year-old.

"Your daddy was a bad boy."

Growing up fast Robert West grew up in a rough neighborhood along
California Avenue on Chicago's west side.

He and his younger brother, Christopher, learned to fend for themselves
early in life. They never met their father until recently. Their mother,
who became a parent at 17, couldn't take care of them.

Robert lived much of his childhood in Rockwell Gardens, an often-violent
project owned by the Chicago Housing Authority near Western Avenue and
Rockwell Street.

Drug addicts. Prostitutes. Rapists. Gangs. They were the neighbors of poor
families living in the 16-story buildings.

The boys often were shuffled between their mother, a grandmother, who had
13 grandchildren, and uncles.

Among his earliest childhood memories, West recalls sleeping in the
project's hallways. He tells of the time his presents were stolen three
days after Christmas. He was 5. The family's apartments were often broken into.

"Kids in the neighborhood were wearing my clothes," he said during a recent
interview at the DuPage County Jail.

While most childhoods are marked by milestones such as learning to ride a
bike, West offers these:

He learned to shoot a gun by 5 in an uncle's back yard. He figured out how
to get across town alone on public transportation by 7. He moved in with an
uncle at 11. Two years later, the family member went to jail on murder charges.

And, by 14, West was selling heroin, cocaine and marijuana and making
$2,000 a week. By 18, he had $18,000 saved up, buried in plastic baggies in
a friend's yard.

By then, he already had minor brushes with police, fights in school, owned
guns, was considered a gang member and, "trusted no one."

Aware of his problems, West thought something had to give. He looked to the
suburbs for an answer.

"I know if I go back out there, to Chicago, all they're going to do is give
me a piece of land and expect me to try to recruit people."

Breaking away West moved out to DuPage County to get away from the life he
had fallen into in Chicago.

Longtime friends of his grandparents lived out here. He'd later end up
marrying their daughter, Natasha.

West enrolled at Glenbard North High School, where he quickly realized
things were going to be a lot tougher.

"The work was harder. I was much smarter in the city than I was here. I
remember the first day. They gave homework. I was like: What's this?"

At 19, he dropped out. He had squandered the thousands he saved in drug
sales on clothes, cars and apartments and was about to become a father.

Again, he needed money. But, this time, West said he didn't turn to selling
drugs. He tried job after job, most of the time running into the same
roadblock - no education.

Meanwhile, he had broken it off with the mother of his first child.

At 21, he married Natasha. The two are raising his first child, Tiffany,
and Natasha's 2-year-old son, Jamie. And the couple just celebrated the
first birthday of their daughter, Alexandria.

They struggle financially. West said that motivated him near Christmas 1997
to start selling drugs again.

"My wife didn't even know what I was doing," he said. "I don't bring
anything from the outside around my family."

It's his family, and the hope of setting a good example for his younger
brother, that now motivates West.

Finding a better way Selling drugs isn't as appealing as it once was to West.

Getting his hands on it isn't the problem, he said. But, as he gets older,
West has grown tired of the worry.

He wants a better way.

"Everything I've always wanted to do, they always say you've got to have a
GED to do it," he said. "I know if I don't do this (the work camp), I'm
never going to get it any other way."

In the work camp, West and six other non-violent youthful offenders will
meet nine hours a day, six days a week, splitting time between physical
labor, counseling and education. Probation officials track them for two
years after the program ends.

As part of his sentence, West remains in jail for the first 30 days of the
three-month program. He then is allowed to move back home but must continue
going to the camp site near West Chicago.

There, he's taking classes with employment counselors, GED teachers and
working with other professionals on anger management, public health issues,
such as AIDS awareness, and learning various life skills.

His personal goal is to get his high school degree, avoid further arrests
and, eventually, start his own trucking business.

Though the work camp just started last week, West said he has a good
attitude about whether it will help him. If he messes up, the only
alternative is prison.

So far, the motivation to succeed, he said, is weighing heavier on his mind
than the consequences of failure.

"Jail isn't hard for me," he said. "Personally, I've been through harder
things in life. I want to do better by my family."

Editor's note: In the coming months, the Daily Herald will track Robert
West's progress during his three-month stint in DuPage County's work camp
for non-violent offenders.