One on One : Volunteerism: Unpaid tutors at county probation camps are helping steer juvenile inmates away from crime. But the program is threatened by budget cuts.

Every week, Leandre Miles writes to Antonio, a 15-year-old convicted robber who now lives at home in South-Central Los Angeles, telling him about her life in college, her job and the probationers she still tutors at Camp Kilpatrick in Malibu.

“Sometimes he calls back and says, ‘I’m OK, I’ll see you soon,’ and things like that,” said Miles, a 24-year-old Pierce College student. “But I worry about him.”

Despite efforts to track youths like Antonio, 43% of juveniles released from Los Angeles County Probation Department camps are later convicted of new crimes, according to a study by the California Youth Authority.

But probation officials say that number might be even higher if it weren’t for the 2,000-plus volunteers who work at the county’s 19 camps each year.

For eight weeks last semester, Miles helped Antonio with his schoolwork and offered him advice and friendship at the juvenile probation center, as part of a program that has been increasingly vital to the nation’s largest camp system.

The camps provide an option to sending about 4,500 juveniles a year to the harsher, more crowded and more expensive California Youth Authority or releasing them. Probation Department staff has been cut as state and county legislators grapple with shrinking budgets. This year, faced with an estimated 16% cut, the department is considering closing the facilities.

“We don’t have the opportunity anymore to provide the intense, one-on-one attention to these kids, many of whom have never had it,” Probation Department spokesman Craig Levy said. “The students who volunteer here are simply invaluable.”

About 70 students come to Camp Kilpatrick from Pierce, UCLA and Pepperdine University once a week to visit their assigned inmates, many of whom have never seen a college campus.

One of Miles’ new students, 15-year-old Lee, in for car theft, assault and vandalism, said his visits to USC near his home usually end right away, with an escort from campus security. “I don’t have such a good idea about college,” said Lee, who is scheduled for release next month. “But when (Miles) talks about it, I think, ‘Damn, I’d like to go there.”’

Don Barr, who coordinates the volunteer program at Camp Kilpatrick, said he gives students strict instructions: Don’t mail anything for the boys, be careful about what reading material you bring in. For the women--don’t wear provocative clothing; and, above all, use common sense.

“More and more, these kids are being sent here for crimes against other people--sometimes violent crimes,” Barr said. “So you have to be careful.”

Barr said he can’t remember a behavior problem during a tutorial session. He said there seems to be less of a need for discipline on the scheduled volunteer days.

“I think beforehand the kids don’t want to risk missing the session,” Barr said. “And, afterward, I know they feel pretty good about themselves.”

“I’m aware that I can’t change anyone’s whole life,” UCLA sophomore Jamala Gathier said during her regular Wednesday evening tutorial with Michael, a 14-year-old serving time for robbery. “But we can spend some time together, as friends.”

“I can tell her things I can’t tell the staff,” Michael said, staring at a math problem. “I can tell her things about, you know, my personality.”

Barr said often the boys feel more comfortable with college students, who are closer in age and do not discipline, than with adults. The 25-year Camp Kilpatrick veteran also said that during the decade he has overseen the program, he has watched college students learn alongside the boys.

“When (college students) first get here, most of them have only seen movies and read stories about these kids--these are the real ‘Boyz N the Hood,’ ” Barr said. “I think a lot of the college kids come here and find out they don’t want to do this kind of work. You might be getting A’s in sociology, but, after coming here, decide that what you really want is something more along the lines of a business major.”

Miles, who also teaches at Hale Junior High School in Woodland Hills, started tutoring as part of her American social problems class at Pierce last fall.

“I started doing it because it was either do the tutoring or write a 20-page term paper,” Miles said. “But it’s probably the thing I’ll remember most about the class and, maybe, about the school.”

Dr. Larry Horn, who teaches the class, said he tries to teach his students to understand the factors that lead many inner-city youths to join gangs and get in trouble.

“What Pierce students have that the kids at the camps don’t is a sense of some power over their own lives,” Horn said. “They are willing to postpone what they want now because they believe that it is possible to achieve something better down the road.”

It’s a point that Miles has come to understand.

“I realize that this is part of the American social problem,” Miles said, gesturing toward her two new students and, beyond, to several rows of camp inmates doing pushups. “I do it mostly because they make me laugh. But it’s frustrating sometimes, especially this one who keeps getting into fights.”

Rodney, a 15-year-old serving time for auto theft, looked up from his math homework. “I don’t know what happens. I just get angry sometimes,” he said. “(Miles) says I need to learn how to control my temper, how to be more mature and stop acting stupid. But then she goes away, and it all happens again.”

Miles said she can’t help writing letters to her students. And, like many others, she has continued her volunteer work after she met the class requirements. “I guess I’ll keep doing it,” Miles said with mock reluctance. “They keep giving me kids, so I guess I have to keep coming back.”