Trouble Moving In?

By SEEMA MEHTA

March 31, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Probation officials see a proposed 90-bed camp in Trabuco Canyon as one answer to expected growth in teen crime. Modeled on an innovative New York state institution, and located next to the county’s Joplin Youth Center, it would focus on bolstering the character of young offenders.

But some canyon residents--unnerved by occasional phone calls warning of an escaped juvenile felon from Joplin--see something else: trouble.

“I think most who have walked out of there have just wanted to get away--they haven’t stopped much in the neighborhood,” Gary Jones said. “But it just takes one to decide they want to cause problems.”

The low-security camp for older teens, called a “leadership academy” by probation officials, would hold 60 boys and 30 girls on the site of another youth facility that was closed in 1979, Probation Department spokesman Rod Speer said. The department is asking the state to pay for $8.4 million of the estimated $11.7-million construction project, with the county making up the rest.

Probation officials say it is needed because the county’s juvenile detention system is unable to hold all the young offenders sentenced by courts. With expected growth in the county’s teen population in mind, the department projects a shortfall of 169 beds by 2010.

Projections are even worse for Juvenile Hall facilities, where minors are detained before going to court: an expected shortage of 519 beds in 2010.

“Overcrowding has been a problem throughout the 1990s at our juvenile institutions,” Speer said.

Joplin--a 60-bed facility for young males that sits on a 330-acre site--is one of three centers for teen felons in the county. The other two are the Youth Guidance Center, a coed 125-bed facility in North Santa Ana, and Los Pinos Conservation Camp, a 125-bed facility for older boys in the Cleveland National Forest.

Although canyon residents understand the county’s needs, they worry that more teen inmates will mean more escapes--and more danger. Residents said they have begun to plan a petition drive to oppose the new camp.

At one recent gathering of residents, Susan Seanez told of her encounter with a teen she believes was a Joplin escapee. Seanez’s uncle lives on Rose Canyon Road, which leads to Joplin’s entrance.

One day, three years ago, she was alone in his house when an agitated male began banging on her door.

“I asked who it was and he said, ‘Lady, please open the door. I’m in trouble. I need to use your phone,’ ” Seanez said. “He started shaking the door.”

“He put his hand through the doggy door. He started looking at me through the window,” she said. “I’ve never been so scared in my life. I told him my friend and the police were coming over and then he left.”

Seanez said she later saw deputies searching the area and learned that a youth sentenced to Joplin for assault had escaped.

Until that point, she--along with many of her neighbors--had thought Joplin was a home for wayward boys, not convicted felons.

Although probation officials could not confirm her account of the incident, the camp’s director said there have been 11 escapes--all captured--since 1996.

Director Joe Salcido said that despite the lack of physical barriers at the center, escapes are rare because Joplin workers are trained to recognize warning signs.

“The way we do that is we provide good supervision and we keep them so involved with activities,” he said. “They’re little sponges. They really respond to the attention. They’re getting some needs met that are not met in the community.”

Speer said truly serious offenders are turned over to the California Youth Authority. “There’s a judge that’s making that decision,” he said. “The judge realizes what the nature of the camp is like.”

Not all residents are worried about the proposed expansion.

“It doesn’t bother me a bit,” said Peter Jones, who has lived on Rose Canyon Road for 11 years. “They own the land--they should be able to do what they like with it.”

Speer said the leadership academy would be different from the military boot camps that gained popularity in recent years. It would be modeled on the Sgt. Henry Johnson Youth Leadership Academy in South Kortright, N.Y.

“It’s going to be more values-oriented and more character-building than breaking people down physically and making a lot of physical demands and shouting in their faces,” he said.

At the New York academy, workers try to teach youths self-discipline, self-esteem and the ability to work with people they may not like, said Doug Cannistra, the academy’s assistant director.

“We need to change the way they think to change their pattern of behavior,” he said.

Orange County Supervisor Todd Spitzer said he appreciates the need for such programming, but questions the lack of security.

“In the old days, that used to really be in the boonies,” Spitzer said. Now, “you’re not far from the toll road. . . . If I had my running shoes on and I was a teen, I could run there probably in about 20 minutes.”

Spitzer said he would not agree to expand Joplin “without substantial changes made to the security system.”

The project is still in the planning stage and must be approved by the Foothill Trabuco Specific Planning Review Board, the county Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors.

There will be at least four opportunities for public comment, Spitzer said. And nothing will happen if the state does not approve the county’s application for construction funds, he said.

“There’s no reason for anyone to be alarmed until we even find out if we’re in the competition for these funds,” he said. “If the county scores well, we’re going to have to have some serious discussions in the community on whether this project goes forward.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Character Camp

Probation officers would ease a projected county shortfall in bed space for young offenders in low-security facilities by opening a leadership academy near the Joplin Youth Center.

Bed Tally

Here’s how the number of suprlus beds in these low-security facilities has dwindled in the past decade. Shortages are projected in 2000 and beyond.

‘87: 55

‘88: 38

‘89: 19

‘90: 19

‘91: 22

‘92: 43

‘93: 43

‘94: 15

‘95: 14

‘96: -