GIRL INMATES POSE PROBLEM

Juvenile Halls Struggle With Growing Number Of Females

The soaring number of girls in Bay Area juvenile halls are often
victims of abuse and neglect, prompting calls to get them alternative
treatment services instead of just locking them up.

Many of the girls are in detention halls for such minor crimes as
running away or abusing alcohol and drugs, which they often commit to
escape being victims of sexual and physical violence at home and abuse
by pimps and other predators on the street.

No one is saying girl offenders shouldn't face punishment. But
officials in several Bay Area counties are seeking to invest in
detention alternatives -- treatment for physical abuse and addiction,
and job skills training -- to help the girls overcome the underlying
problems that get them repeatedly locked up.

``Girls are in detention for less serious offenses than boys, they're
inappropriately detained for their own protection and their service
needs are being ignored,'' said Meda Chesney-Lind, a University of
Hawaii professor and national expert on delinquent girls.

``I think it's far more cost-effective to look at girls' needs
differently, instead of warehousing girls in juvenile facilities that
are driven by the security requirements of boys,'' she said.

Girl offenders have long been invisible in a juvenile justice system
designed for a largely male population. Now troubled girls are drawing
national attention because one in four minors arrested is female --
making them the faster-growing segment of the juvenile system.

Across the Bay Area over the past decade, the number of girls admitted
to juvenile halls has grown more than twice as fast as the number of
boys. In several counties, the number of boys declined from 1988 to
1997, while the number of girls increased by as much as 92 percent in
San Mateo County. Statewide, the number of girls rose 34 percent in
that period, while the number of boys rose 18 percent.

A groundbreaking study of girls in California juvenile halls found
that about 46 percent of almost 1,000 girls had a record of abuse or
neglect in their case files.

When researchers interviewed nearly 200 of those girls, the numbers
were even higher: 81 percent reported they had been physically abused,
56 percent sexually abused, more than 45 percent beaten or burned, 40
percent raped and 25 percent shot or stabbed.

``The almost universal characteristic of girls in the juvenile justice
system is a history of violent victimization,'' said Leslie Acoca, the
senior researcher on the study by the National Council on Crime and
Delinquency in San Francisco.

The emotional trauma that fuels girls' trouble with the law makes it
very challenging to help them.

``When a child is molested they learn to not trust anyone; they don't
form relationships well. So, they frequently run away from home or
from out-of-home placements, that violates probation and they end up
back in juvenile hall,'' said Deberah Bringelson, executive director
of the San Mateo County Criminal Justice Council.

Community homes

It's extremely difficult to locate juvenile group homes in the Bay
Area, because of neighborhood opposition and soaring housing costs.
But there's a growing movement to provide girls -- and boys -- with
rehabilitation programs in their home communities, where they
ultimately will return.

Local officials hope to help juvenile delinquents with proven programs
that shore up self-destructive families, instead of simply building
ever-larger juvenile halls. Reform is vital in a society where the
vast majority of the abused female offenders face high risk for AIDS
and other serious illnesses.

``You've got to address the big picture,'' said Dan Macallair,
associate director of the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, a
San Francisco public policy group. ``If you're not working with the
families, you're not dealing with the problem, because a lot of the
time these parents are just as troubled as the kids.''

Ideas for reform

Several Bay Area counties are grappling with juvenile justice reform
for girls.

In June, San Mateo County supervisors delayed plans to replace the
aging, overcrowded Hillcrest Juvenile Hall with a bigger, $37 million
facility when Supervisor Rich Gordon criticized the proposal's lack of
detention alternatives.

Top county managers, criminal justice and health officials and
community leaders are exploring building a ``campus-style'' juvenile
center. It would have a smaller, modern detention hall and a series of
residential cottages with flexibility to meet the needs of specialized
groups, such as girls with substance abuse or sexual abuse problems.

At Santa Clara County's Wright Center ranch, programs for girl
offenders include gang-prevention, self-esteem and leadership-skills
counseling, Mexican dance classes and prenatal care. The county also
refers girls to private group homes and specialized community-based
programs.

Policy-makers nationwide are watching a three-year Alameda County
research project that's diverting 80 percent of girls into
community-based peer groups that deal with date rape, self-motivation,
pregnancy prevention, parenting skills, anger management, career
building -- even etiquette.

Probation officers with relatively small 25-person caseloads introduce
the girls to neighborhood support services, female mentors, sports
programs and poetry writing to encourage expression of bottled-up feelings.

Grace, a 17-year-old in a Redwood City program for homeless youth, is
proof that intervention programs can help young offenders turn around.

After growing up with a single mother and her siblings in San Jose
homeless shelters, she ran away at 13 to escape the pressures of her
nomadic family life. While living under bridges, she was attacked and
sexually assaulted. Angry and frustrated, she began drinking and
street-fighting, and landed in Santa Clara County juvenile hall five
times.

Grace has been in the Daybreak program about three months. She is
training as a waitress, attending substance abuse counseling and
saving money for an apartment.

``I've learned how to control my anger and get my life straightened
out,'' she said. ``My main goal is to get a place to live, where
someday, maybe I can get back together with my mom and my nieces,''
she said. ``I thank God for what I've got.''

``No Place to Hide,'' Acoca's just-released 300-page study, lays bare
the frightening odds stacked against girl offenders. Researchers did
in-depth interviews with almost 200 girl delinquents in Alameda,
Marin, Los Angeles and San Diego counties and reviewed nearly 1,000
probation case files.

Girls were most vulnerable between age 12 and 15 to their first
experiences of being sexually abused, shot or stabbed, engaging in
substance abuse, school failure, running away or giving birth.

Most intensive programs for girl offenders begin after these problems
have started, rather than earlier when they might have been prevented,
the study found. Acoca recommended that prevention services target
girls by age 5, when many report first being molested.

Girls, far more than boys, are arrested for so-called juvenile
``status offenses'' -- breaking curfew, running away, truancy -- acts
that are only illegal because the offender is under 18.

A 1974 federal law encouraged authorities to divert status offenders
to alternative programs, so detention halls are reserved for criminals
who pose a danger to themselves or the public.

Yet girls on probation for crimes such as petty theft or public
drunkenness can be jailed for chronically running away, skipping
school or breaking curfew.

Nationally, status offenses accounted for a quarter of girls' arrests
in 1996, but less than 10 percent of boys' arrests. Girls composed 57
percent of runaway arrests that year, even though research surveys
show that boys and girls run away in equal numbers.

Lacking resources

San Mateo County officials say they want to create girls' programs,
but lack money and staff. Chief Deputy Probation Officer Janice
MacLaren said over the past year the juvenile hall has been bringing
in speakers on domestic violence, abuse and pregnancy prevention to
the 30-bed girls detention unit.

But there are few programs in the state for abused girls who are
chronic runaways, whose traumatic emotional wounds require intensive
treatment.

``Sometimes girls have to wait in the hall longer while we find them a
specialized placement, because there are lots of programs for boys but
not as many for girls,'' MacLaren said.

San Mateo County Presiding Juvenile Judge Margaret Kemp said she'd
like to have a juvenile girls ranch or a ``respite center'' where
girls could take sanctuary until family blowups are resolved.

In harm's way

But she said there's a reason San Mateo County makes more use of
``therapeutic detention'' -- briefly jailing probation violators for
minor offenses -- than other Bay Area counties with similar
populations.

``Most of the girls are in the hall because they're really placing
themselves in harm's way. They're running away from home, living on
the streets . . . or they're having sexual relations with older men,''
Kemp said. ``So they're in juvenile hall as a means of protecting
themselves, and that's really not a lot different from how we deal
with boys who are running with gangs and using substances.''

Girl-offender programs are at a disadvantage in vying with the mostly
male juvenile population for funding.

Last month, Gov. Pete Wilson vetoed a bill funding $15 million in
state challenge grants to encourage counties to create specialized
programs for female offenders. Wilson said it duplicated an existing
juvenile grant program that allows local governments to decide whether
to fund programs serving girls or boys.

Wilson added that he feared the bill ``disproportionately'' earmarked
half the juvenile grant funding for girls, who are responsible for
only 23 percent of offenses committed by juveniles.

Checked-by: Patrick Henry