HOUSE CALLS ARE BACK IN VOGUE

Volunteers Follow Up On Juvenile Drug Court Cases.

The early summer evening laid before them like a backyard sofa lounge,
seeming to invite other things after a day's work.

But if they wanted to know if their kids were doing OK, if they wanted to
really know, their work was just beginning.

Mark Ruddle held a list of addresses with the names of teen-agers enlisted
in the Tulsa County Juvenile Bureau's drug treatment court. Conley Tunnell
had a list of parents in a similar drug treatment program whose children
have been adjudicated deprived.

Tulsa County Sheriff's Deputy Marlin Warren's white cruiser was ready to roll.

Time to pay a few surprise visits.

"Child care runs from 9-to-5," Warren said. "But changing a child's life is
not 9-to-5."

On different nights, Warren or Tulsa County Sheriff Capt. Tim Albin might
take caseworkers and probation officers like Ruddle in any of numerous
directions from the parking lot at the Tulsa County Juvenile Bureau.

From Sand Springs to Broken Arrow, throughout Tulsa, north to south, they
have to cover a lot of ground trying to track the insidious workings of drug
addictions.

The deputy's cruiser rocked smoothly with the bursts of its robust engine.
People watched from their yards and lush summer trees rushed by outside the
windshield while the passengers plotted out who they hoped to visit this night.

Warren tends to play the role of the good cop, as if to show kids who have
had run-ins with the law that a lawman in your house isn't always bad.

"I'm here with my uniform and my gun," he told a teen-ager they were
visiting for the first time. "But I'm just out here with these guys. It's
not a harassment thing."

He passes out sticker badges to children in the homes. He spots the
teen-ager's picture on the wall from an earlier family photo and says with a
big smile, "Is that you?"

Ruddle plays the more pensive, cautious role. When that teen-ager they are
visiting for the first time talked about some trouble he got into while with
a cousin and his friend, Ruddle was the one who asked in a testing tone, "Do
those guys get high?"

"No they don't," the teen answered. "I know my cousin doesn't. I don't know
about the other guy."

Back in the car, Ruddle was concerned. The kid seems to be doing well, and
he is getting a lot of support from his father, which is good.

"But it sounds like he might be with the wrong kids," he said.

The next stop should be a happy one, Ruddle and Warren agreed. This
teen-ager has overcome an onslaught of personal problems, they say. He is an
example of what good can come of these intensive treatment programs.

"He's not here," his mother said after she opened the apartment door.

"Where'd he go?" Ruddle asked.

"He said he was going to the movies." There is a lilt of embarrassment in
the woman's voice. Her son has a court-imposed curfew.

"That's too bad for him, isn't it?" she said.

After they talked a while, Ruddle said, "Tell him to page me when he gets
in. We're going to need to talk about consequences."

The consequences most likely will be court-imposed house arrest, enforced by
random phone calls. They hope the teen-ager is still clean, but his absence
is a bit troubling.

"I doubt they went to the movies," Ruddle said after they returned to the
car. "I just hope mom isn't covering up for him."

If he is getting back into some trouble, then this visit could help nip the
problem early.

"This is the only way to see how kids are doing," Ruddle said. "There's a
lot to be said about going out and seeing them."

It's easier to deal with problems now rather than down the road, said Albin,
the sheriff's deputy.

On one of their regular nights out, the law officers and the juvenile
caseworkers sat around a restaurant table on a dinner break during their
extra nighttime duty.

"This is a new accountability a kid hasn't had to deal with," Albin said.

The union of the sheriff's youth programs and the juvenile bureau's programs
is not written in either department's regular schedules. They are all
volunteers at this table, and the juvenile bureau's drug treatment programs
coordinator, Tunnell, makes note of this.

If the programs work, they're as good as the people who make them work, he said.

"The program is the vehicle for getting these guys out there."

As they work through the dusk into nightfall, not all of their calls go
pleasantly.

One recent evening, they arrested an adult who the law officers said was
using drugs in the home of one of the juveniles they went to visit.

It's hard, Warren said, to help the kids in their programs stay clean when
they have less control over other people living in the same homes.

That's his sore spot. That's when he stops being the good cop.

Their last call on this night took them to a home where one of the
teen-agers who Warren says he is most proud of lives with his sister and
brother-in-law.

Lights were on all through the house, which glowed in the dark neighborhood.
But no one came when Warren knocked on the door. Tulsa County Commissioner
John Selph, who rode along on this trip, stood just off the front steps,
also wearing a tan deputy's uniform.

After more knocking and waiting, the door opened and there was the
brother-in-law. He recognized the men at his door. His wife and the
teen-ager they're looking for aren't home, he said quickly.

The man appeared nervous to Warren, and the deputy grew increasingly
suspicious as the man continued to stand in the doorway, making no gesture
that would invite anybody inside to wait.

"Can we come in and look around?"

The man rattled off that this is his wife's house and he doesn't think it
would be right to let lawmen in without asking her. Warren wondered aloud if
there is a problem. He asked if the man had something to hide.

"There are no drugs in here," he said. "Absolutely no drugs."

The conversation ran more circles, then Warren asked the man to step aside
with him. Warren made it quite clear that he doesn't believe the man, that
he's really proud of the teen-ager in the treatment program, who has been
clean eight months, and he wants no one using drugs in this house.

Warren's still thinking about the kid and the house and the people who live
in there when they got back into the car.

"John," he said to the commissioner, "how can a kid stay clean in a
situation like that?"

The nights end back at the juvenile bureau. Ruddle paused under the lights
in the nearly empty parking lot after 10 p.m. and glanced once more at the
pager on his belt.

The teen-ager who was supposed to page him had not called.

He'd have to take care of that tomorrow.

Joe Robertson, World staff writer, can be reached at 581-8361 or via e-mail
at joe.robertson@tulsaworld.com.