HARD WORK FOR YOUTHS AT CAMP

Schurz, Nev.

California Problem Kids Get Few Luxuries In Desert

Two dozen of California's toughest juvenile offenders are on their
backs in the gray desert sand, grunting their way through leg lifts.

A couple of adult supervisors get down in the sand with the kids in a
gesture of camaraderie. The supervisors keep their walkie-talkies
just a short grab away, ready to call for help should things turn ugly.

This is the Rite of Passage camp, where things do turn ugly now and
then. It is a place on the fringes in more ways than one--a tiny
cluster of shack-like buildings amid sagebrush, dry lakebeds and salt
flats, where l3- to l8-year-old boys are sent by California probation
departments for 90 days of highly regimented athletic training and schooling.

It is billed as a last chance before incarceration for chronic
runaways and rebels.

Rite of Passage became the focus of an investigation by Nevada law
enforcement when Paul Choy, a l5-year-old San Francisco boy, was
critically injured there February 4. Members of the staff said that
he became violent and that he stopped breathing even though they
followed carefully drawn rules on retraining residents.

Choy remains on life support in a Reno hospital. A family friend says
he has been declared brain dead.

His case has rekindled controversy over the benefits of so-called
wilderness programs for troubled teenagers and about probation
departments that send youngsters to other states, outside the range
of state licensing.

Five to seven times per week, a resident becomes so violent he must
be physically restrained.

The camp houses ll0 residents. Their well-being is entrusted to the
33 "coaches" who work seven-day shifts and bunk with the kids in
plywood-floored Quonset huts.

There are no weapons. Stern discipline, even a raised voice, is
discouraged, say camp supervisors. And the rules are clear: If a
resident acts threateningly, the coach must step back and give the
youth every chance to find a face-saving way out.

"The last thing we want to see is a student losing control." said
shift supervisor John Motley. "Every time we see them make a mistake,
we given them the right choice to make."

Motley said the students are told to "stop, think, act, reflect on
your actions."

It does not always work so neatly. Five to seven times per week, a
resident becomes so violent he must be physically restrained, Motley said.

Strict rules govern how this is done. One day last week, coaches
practiced the camp's restraint technique. It looks easy. One man
claps the other under the arms and gently drops him on his back.

Motley said he is satisfied no one at the camp did anything wrong. To
the contrary, he said coaches may have saved Choy's life by giving
the cardiopulmonary resuscitation for a half-hour before he was
evacuated to a hospital by helicopter.

Motley refused to allow students to be interviewed, saying Nevada
authorities insist that no students can talk to the press until the
investigation is cleared up.

During a camp tour, visitors were shown students moving in parade
formation and eating tortillas with beans in the cafeteria.

Motley said all incidents in which coaches have physical contact with
students are documented and are routinely reviewed by the state
authorities and the Walker river Paiute Tribe, on whose land the camp
is located.

Rite of Passage, a for-profit company, pays the tribe $7,000 a month,
said tribal chairman Anita Collins. Because the land belongs to the
Paiutes, the state has no licensing authority, although is does
investigate reports of neglect or abuse. Collins said a full-time
inspector keeps an eye on the camp. In the past, she said, the tribal
council has demanded that employees with criminal background be fired.

Motley produced a log showing that about 300 outsiders, mostly from
regulatory agencies, visited the camp in the past year.

He said it has never been cited for serious violations of either the
state's or the tribe's rules.

In the past year-and-a-half, 50 incident reports have been reviewed
by the tribe, the state and the Mineral County Sheriff;s Department,
he said. In February l99l, the tribe complained that a student had
been restrained for too long.[Emphasis added] The camp answered that
the incident involved three separate instances of restraint and that
each instance was brief.

The tribe instructed the camp to make sure coaches were recertified
on passive restraint techniques every month.

On Sunday, Judi Mar, director of San Francisco's Asian Youth Center,
said she received a call from Paul Choy on January 28. He complained
that he as depressed at the camp.

According to Mar, Choy said he had been forced to sit on a wooden
platform in the cold for five hours. Choy said it was punishment for
failing to finish a five-mile run and other parts of the camp's
demanding physical regime. [Emphasis added]

Mar, who has known Choy for about two years, said she opposed sending
the 5-foot-4 youth to the Nevada camp. She said he did not have the
athletic ability for the camp, and it was too far away for his mother
to visit. Also, she was concerned that an Asian youth from San
Francisco would feel isolated at the rural desert camp.