Kaufman County’s community service program teaches juveniles to start accepting responsibility By Maria Sprow

No. 1432’s time in the Kaufman County jail was admittedly short.

Having gotten in trouble for just a traffic violation, No. 1432 had never imagined himself as just a number, had never imagined himself behind bars, and had never imagined having his ordinary freedoms stripped from him to the point of having to walk heel-to-toe in single file lines, having to talk the family through a sheet of glass and having to sleep in an atmosphere controlled by jailers.

But after just two hours, No. 1432 was convinced: Jail was not the place for him. He wanted out, and he wanted to stay out. “It really showed me that I want a way better life for me. Even though I was in there for only a traffic violation, but it still brought some sense to me and opened up my eyes, that, jail is the real thing and it isn’t anything I would ever want to go to in my entire life,” No. 1432 wrote in a letter to jail staff after getting out.

Thank God it was only a tour – a tour unlike most are ever privy to. No. 1432 is one of over 100 participants in Kaufman County’s S.T.A.R. Program. – that’s Start Today Accepting Responsibility – in which juveniles who get into trouble in Kaufman County’s Precinct 2 sign on for community service hours and a tour of the county jail in lieu of having to pay the fine for whatever Class C misdemeanor offense – assault, alcohol or tobacco possession, criminal trespass, disorderly conduct, etc. – they’ve committed.

The program started after a discussion between Precinct 2 Constable Joe Don Law, his deputy Scott Whitworth and the Justice of the Peace 2 Judge Don Cates. The judge had been experiencing several frustrations with his juvenile offenders and their parents – he didn’t feel like the juveniles were learning from their mistakes, they weren’t doing the community service they had agreed to do, and their parents didn’t seem to care.

“Our judge was saying, you know, ‘I give them community service and then they come back at the end of their deadline for their community service and say they haven’t been able to find (community service),” said Law. “I was just thinking, hey, if you just have one central agency to put this together … we started just brainstorming this thing.”

Unlike many other community service in-lieu-of-fee programs, the S.T.A.R. program comes with strict rules participants must follow. Besides taking the jail tour, juveniles in the program must participate in structured community service projects, which are organized through the Constable’s office. Participants must wear identifying vests so that others in the community know they aren’t just good citizens picking up trash for grins. They must follow a dress code of no hats, shorts, flip-flops or earrings, show up 10 minutes early, and give up their cell phones, chewing gum, pagers, weapons and tobacco products. They must write letters of respect to the officers and inmates who guided them through the program. If they curse, they are sent home. If they behave inappropriately, they are sent home. On the jail tour, kids are sometimes told to walk heel-totoe, just as though they are inmates.

The program forces parents to accept responsibility, too – they must drive their child on the jail tour and are required to drop their child off at the community service projects.

“We are finding out that there is a parent problem just as big as there is a child problem,” Law said, adding that he feels S.T.A.R. benefits everyone in the community – children, parents, the schools, and the local civic organizations and government entities that take advantage of the free labor.

The program started as just a supervised community service opportunity; the vests, the jail tour and the writing assignments were all added later. Law’s father came up with the S.T.A.R. acronym, since the star is a common symbol for law enforcement and for goals. From the name to the jail tour, the brainstorming has never stopped.

“We’ve learned to revise our rules and procedures, to make it more strict for these kids to really know what it would be like to be incarcerated,” Whitworth said.

The duo have kept their ears to the ground. Kids talk about the program, and the things they say have resulted in visible changes.

For example, one day Constable Law overheard one of the juveniles caught doing his community service telling a friend that he wasn’t in trouble – he was just good friends with the Constable and helping him out.

“And I said, ‘No you aren’t, you’re in trouble,” Law said, adding that that was when he decided the participants should have to wear identifying vests, since acknowledgment is the first step to accepting responsibility.

In the beginning, kids were also telling their friends in school that the program wasn’t that hard – they were all just basically hanging out, doing the same work, regardless of their offense. After hearing that, the community service was re-structured so that the worst-behaved kids, or those with the more serious offenses, or those second-timers, get the worst duties. For example, if a group is out cleaning the National Guard Armory, well-behaved kids may sweep the floor; anyone with a negative attitude or who has already gone through the program winds up cleaning the bathroom.

“We try to push a little bit harder and give the harder jobs to the ones that really need it,” Whitworth said.

The jail tour was added to the program in April 2006 after several youths expressed being “weirded out” while doing community service hours in the county’s old jail, which was being converted into office space.

“We were going back into those old parts of the jail that used to be cells and such, and a lot of the kids were saying, ‘This is scary, this is freaky, all those bars…’ We saw that and we started thinking, maybe that’s a good idea,” Whitworth said, adding that the most successful part of the jail tour seems to be the last part, in which youths are taken into the family visitation area and forced to talk to their parents through glass and using a phone.

“We make the point that something could be wrong, your dad is sick and your mom came in to visit, and she is bawling on the other side of the glass, but you can’t touch her, you can’t hug her, you can’t do nothing,” Whitworth said. “That catches most people right there.”

On its surface, S.T.A.R. may resemble the “Scared Straight!” program out of the East Jersey State Prison in Rahway, New Jersey. The program was made infamous in 1978 when a television documentary showed a group of troubled youth getting lambasted by a group of inmates known as the “Lifers,” who had agreed to scare the youths back on to the straight and narrow path by telling horror stories of prison life, including tales of prison rape and murder. The Lifers were a group of convicts – many of whom had committed crimes as juveniles – in the prison serving sentences of at least 25 years. Many of them had kids of their own who were following in their footsteps, so the Lifers created the program to show at-risk youths that jail wasn’t a good place to be. Unfortunately, at first, the Lifers had the opposite affect – after meeting with kids and telling them about the bad food, solitary confinement and the social groups within the prison, the kids would sometimes ask to go through the program again, believing the Lifers to be “cool”. So the Lifers changed their tactics, becoming hostile and authoritarian.

The program was popular for several decades, and the original documentary had several sequels, in which the original youth were shown as adults 10 years and 20 years later. According to the original documentary, the program had a 94 percent success rate, meaning that 94 percent of the youths did not re-offend. But those statistics were later criticized for not using a control group, and subsequent studies have concluded that similar programs actually increase a person’s chances of being arrested. The Scared Straight program was put on hold last year.

Still, such shock and scare programs have their believers. Constable Law said he receives many calls from desperate parents looking for some tough love tactics asking if their troubled children can participate in the S.T.A.R. program, thinking it is much like the Scared Straight program.

“We’ve had a lot of parents say that they wish it was a little more rough, a little more harsh,” Whitworth said.

A 21-year-old named Kayley is the oldest person to go through the S.T.A.R. program. She got caught with alcohol a month before her 21st birthday, so the judge gave her the option. She went through the jail tour and said she believes it will do a good job of scaring kids away from the prison system.

“They made me take all my jewelry off, put the vests on, and walk single file in the line. They showed us the gates with the wire, took us into where they book you and strip search you, showed us the shower and the cold water, and all the clothing they give you, the toothbrush, the washrag, the soap, the blankets, the food tray. They tell you about the different cells,” she said. “They were pretty strict with us when we were going through there.”

She added that she had not known what to expect before going on the tour.

“Some of it surprised me, because all of the inmates were just yelling and screaming. One inmate who came out to talk to us, he came out yelling at screaming at one kid, cussing, ‘I hope you all come to jail,’ and then he kind of softened up and touched everybody by talking about how his mom comes out to see him, and how he’s the baby of the family, and none of his siblings take care of her, but she still brings him money. It’s sad, because it shows that when you go to jail, not only does it affect you, it affects your friends, your family,” Kayley said. “They had us go through the visiting process of being able to visit someone through the phone. I never want to have to see my mom through one of those glass walls again.

“I know jail is just somewhere I don’t want to go, and I’m sure it scared the (bejesus) out of those little kids,” she added.

But S.T.A.R., while having some similarities to Scared Straight, is more about teaching kids to accept responsibility for their actions than trying to scare them out of the prison system.

The jail tour is just a small component – the community service is also important, as are the relationships built between the youths and the deputies.

“The kids are learning their lesson. They are learning responsibility and consequences for their actions,” Whitworth said, adding that he does not think the program would be successful without each of its components. “They need to see where they are going to be if they keep up the lifestyle that they have, they need to see the liberties that they will not have, they need to see the conditions so that they can think about it. They also need to have the work part of it, so they can learn the responsibility.

“I tell them, while you’re doing this community service, we are not friends. But when you get done, I want you to be able to see me at Wal-Mart, at the movie theatre, anywhere, and say hi. But if you don’t straighten up, I’m not going to associate myself with you, because you are a troublemaker,” he added. “I feel like if they come up to me in public and shake my hand and they are happy to see me, then I’ve done my job. They always come up and shake my hand, and they are happy to see me. It’s that satisfaction right there that makes it worthwhile.”

Feedback from the program so far has shown that the community believes in its future success. Parents have written letters of thanks, asking to volunteer in the future; the youths have said the jail tour has made them think twice about continuing to get into trouble. One parent wrote that their child had found a better group of friends after participating in S.T.A.R. Another wrote that it had been a good male bonding experience for her son, who otherwise didn’t have many male influences in his life.

“I am thrilled that these kids are given a chance to view our police officers and constables on a personal level and a chance to know that they are not the enemy and that they care for their well-being,” wrote one parent in response to a questionnaire, which the Constable’s office mails to all parents whose children have participated in the program. The questionnaire includes a self-addressed stamped envelope, but only 22 of the parents have taken the time to return their feedback to the office.

The questionnaire asks parents five questions:

• Do you think the community service program was beneficial to your child and did you see any changes in his/her attitudes or actions?
• Do you think that this community service program benefits the community?
• Do you feel the program, from being issued a citation to writing an exit letter after completing assigned hours, has forced your child to recognize and accept responsibility for his/ her own actions and choices?
• What do you as the parent/ guardian think needs to be different or changed about the program to be more effective and successful?
• What is your overall opinion about the program?

None of the responses so far have been answered in the negative. All of the parents seem grateful to the Constable’s office for offering the program.

Municipal Judge Patricia Ashcroft, who utilizes the S.T.A.R. program in her juvenile court, is also grateful.

“I think it’s just a win-win situation,” she said, adding that she has tried other community service programs in the past, such as one with the local animal shelter, but none of them have been successful. Kids didn’t show up for their service hours, and the organizations involved became frustrated. It makes a difference that the program is tied to and supervised by dedicated law enforcement. “So far, this is working fairly well,” she said. “The recidivism rate, I have not noticed the same kids coming through the system anymore. I think they learn something from their experience, and it must be something very valuable.”

So far, the program’s success rate is 97 percent, said Law, meaning that 97 percent of the juveniles who have completed the program have not gotten into trouble again.

Perhaps it’s the combination of Law’s experience and Whitworth’s youthfulness that help keep the program successful, but it’s the dedication and commitment of the two – as well as Precinct 2 Chief Court Clerk Jan Staiger and Jailer Kim Baker, who volunteer with the program – that keep it running. Sheriff David Byrnes and Chief Deputy Alan Rickman have also played key roles.

Constable Law is old-school; he’s tough and believes in discipline and following the rules, but in a fatherly kind of way. He tells the story of one father, whose son participated in S.T.A.R. but who still had to pay off his $61 court fine. “This one dad told us he had his kid out picking weeds to pay off the fine, and he gives him a nickel toward the fine for every weed that has a root attached to it,” Law said, noting that that’s a lot of weed pulling and nodding his head in approval.

“That’s my kind of dad.” Whitworth is just 25, still fairly new to the job, and as enthusiastic as one can get. He talks about the S.T.A.R. program still convinced that one person can make a difference. Both his enthusiasm and his exhaustion are evident.

“It’s been rewarding and disheartening. It’s taken a lot of personal time away from me and my family,” Whitworth said. “But I had a lot of friends that went the wrong way and I’ve seen some of my family members go the wrong way and it kills me to see all these juveniles who are either lost because they are hanging out with the wrong people, or who are lost because their parents just don’t care. Our safety and our well-being as a society relies on them developing into proper members of society.” Baker, who works inside the Kaufman County Jail, is just as passionate. “My heart is with the kids,” she said. “Working at the jail, I see the revolving door, inmates coming in, then getting out, then coming back in. At the Kaufman County Jail, we have some 17-year-olds in there, and it completely messes up their lives.”

Baker works three days a week doing mostly administrative work for the S.T.A.R. program, and does not get paid. In fact, the program currently operates without a budget and without commissioners court funding.

As the S.T.A.R program has continued to evolve, it has also grown in popularity throughout the county, though only juveniles in Precinct 2 so far can access the program.

“It shows these kids the right way and wrong way of doing things,” said Kaufman County Precinct 2 Commissioner Ray Clark. “If we can turn one of them around so they don’t go down the path of crime, it’ll save Kaufman County a lot of money, just keeping them out of jail.”

He believes the program is worthy of expansion, both in Kaufman County and beyond.

Other commissioners in the county agree, citting several ways in which the county benefits from the S.T.A.R. program. Not only is the program a proactive measure that could save taxpayer dollars in the future by steering at-risk youths away from crime, but the community service performed by S.T.A.R. participants has helped the county keep its roadsides and courthouse clean.

“When I campaigned for this job, I campaigned on litter and how bad I thought it was,” said Commissioner Jerry Rowden, who oversees the county’s Precinct 1 area and has used the S.T.A.R. program to pick up trash around his precinct. “I campaigned on using the trustees, but the trustees are not always available. This is the same thing, we’ve got a free labor force out there that we need to take advantage of.”

He added that he’d like to see the program expanded in the future – even if it meant funding it.

“There’s plenty of work to be done,” Rowden said.

It’s April 19 at about 6:10 p.m., and a ragtag group of seven teenagers stands in the parking lot of the Kaufman County Jail, assembling around Precinct 2 Constable Joe Don Law and two deputies, Scott Whitworth and Kim Baker.

In all, there are fi ve boys and two girls, each of whom are either 14 or 17 years old. Th ere’s a tall kid in a blue polo shirt and khakis with the ends of his eyebrows shaved off ; a small girl in a yellow polo shirt and jewel-studded jeans; a big guy with shaggy hair in a blue hoody; a skinny kid in baggy jeans and a red shirt that, if untucked, falls down to his knees; a second girl, taller than the other but still skinny, wearing a black shirt; a brown-haired guy in a red t-shirt; and a second big shaggy-haired guy wearing cut-up jeans stained by permanent marker drawings, including arrows on each side pointing toward his crotch. He wears a black t-shirt that reads “Monster Garage” and has a picture of a skull on front.

The kids are all participants in the precinct’s Start Today Accepting Responsibility community service program. Th ey are there to venture to a place where hopefully none will go again – jail.

The two girls are there for fi ghting. Blue Hoody is in for smoking; Graffi ti Pants is in for driving without a license; Blue Polo Shirt is in for fi ghting; the brown haired red shirt kid is in for using profane language; the other is in for an assault charge.

All wear a neon orange vest with the words “PCT. 2 CoMM. SERVICE” across the back; none seem really sure what to expect. Th ey seem relaxed, with the assault charge boy complaining about having to use the bathroom and the others moseying along and redefi ning “single fi le line” – until they get inside the jail. Th e next two hours are fi lled with various experiences: feeling the mattresses inmates have to sleep on; standing in the urinesmelling shower area while the Corporal leading the tour explains the concept of cavity searches; being on the inside of various locked cells, listening to doors and windows slam and inmates yell; posing for the camera used at booking.

It’s only about 10 minutes before the kids meet their first inmate, after walking past the booking area and through a gate, into a hallway with numerous blue-doored rooms. Th e doors each have two windows; a square one, about a foot by foot large, at about head level, and a smaller mail slot-sized window at about knee level. All the larger windows are closed shut, but one knee-level window is open, and an inmate drops down, eerily yelling through the hole. “Th is shit is real up in here,” he yells. “you don’t want to come in here.” Th e group heads through another door, then another and fi nally into a thin hallway, about three feet wide, the blue doors there closer together. Several of the head-level windows are open, though the rooms are sealed, and an inmate starts shouting through his cell door, calling the space his home.

The last four doors open loudly, and two at a time, the kids are ordered inside. Th e doors slam loudly behind them, noise echoing down the hall, and the windows close behind the doors, the sound also echoing down the hall. Th ere’s silence for a minute. Th e hallway is warm. Th en the tour guides pound on the cell doors, open the windows, and begin shouting. “Too small?” Whitworth shouts at one. “you wanna live in there? no? I don’t think you do either.”

Th e Corporal takes a break from slamming and shouting before releasing the kids again. “I don’t want to see them in here, ya know,” he says. “Th ere is no sense in it. Th ey need to stay out of trouble.” Th e group heads onward, toward a set of pod cells – each pod having about a dozen inmates inside. About half the inmates come to the pod’s glass, yelling as the group passes by. Th e group passes through a doorway, and then suddenly is face-to-face with the inmates, no glass barriers, no doors, no nothing. Th e inmates stand in the doorway, the kids stand in the hallway.

A tall inmate stands closest, towering over the kids. He tells the group he’s 19 years old, and that he’s been in trouble since he was 14. “We gotta eat when they tell us to eat, go to sleep when they tell us to sleep, go outside when they tell us to go outside – you think that’s fun?” the inmate asks the kids, who do not look amused. one’s mouth is hanging open; the others are just staring silently.

The inmate takes off his shirt, telling Bathroom Boy – the assualt charge kid whose need to use the bathroom is a consistent theme throughout the tour – to put it on. Th en the inmate removes his pants. Bathroom Boy puts those on as well, eventually standing in the hallway looking very much like one of the inmates, only smaller and more likely to get his butt kicked.

The inmates grab a mattress from the room and throw it through the doorway, along with a small bottle of Vaseline, which one of the kids pockets after an inmate tells him it’s his. “you’re one mistake from coming in here, one decision. your next decision could get you in here. you better make it right,” another tells the kids.

The next stop is a room called “East Exercise yard,” only there is no yard. Th e four walls are made of cement, the fl oor is cement. Th e ceiling is partially covered to keep rain out; there is little natural lighting and no visible sun. Th ere is a basketball hoop, but no basketball. Th e Corporal informs the group that inmates get three hours a week in this “yard.” Whitworth takes the opportunity to mention all the things the yard is missing. Sunlight. Grass. Trees. Passing cars. Scenery.

Then there are more doors and gates until the Corporal stops at one cell. Th is cell is diff erent from the others – it’s smaller and its interior is made of yellow rubber padding. Th ere’s a round hole in the fl oor and a raised partition along the back. Th e hole is for peeing; the raised partition is for sleeping. Th is is the violent cell. “If you ever act stupid, I’m going to strip you butt naked… and put you in a rubber room,” the Corporal tells the group. “And if you get real stupid, I’m going to use a TASER. Th ey hurt. Th ey’ll make you piss your pants.”

An inmate in black and grey comes out of a room, handcuff ed. His name, the kids are told, is Terry Davis. “I’ve been in here 16 months; it ain’t got no better than day one,” Davis says quietly, facing the kids while talking about what it’s like to “care for other men.

“From the time you get into these pods, someone is going to take advantage of you,” he says, chastising the boy who had accepted the Vaseline earlier.

Another inmate, this one still inside his cell, begins yelling at Davis to let him speak. He’s a blonde-haired tattooed guy; a sign next to his cell states that the cell is for “disciplinary separation.”

The inmate’s name is Michael Pettie. He tells the group that he’s 27 years old and has been locked up since he was 14, mostly for drug usage and “trying to impress people. “Don’t think I haven’t had the chance to do the right thing, because I have. I just keep making the wrong decisions,” he rambles. “I’m gonna tell you right now, if y’all keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll be right here like me,” he adds, talking about how, once inside, life is lonely. “Slowly but surely, everyone is gonna fall off your team.”

The group heads to the women’s side of the jail, where the women live in pods. one woman orders the group to hold their hands in the air and talks about what it’s like to live having to be under the authority of other people. Their hands are still in the air as another inmate, who says she was in jail because of a methamphetamine addiction, begins talking about her 9-yearold “baby,” her voice shaking throughout the entire sob story, about how she got into trouble originally, worked her way successfully through her parole and “did everything fine” – until she “picked up that pipe to have one good high. … My whole life is wasted for methamphetamine.” The final destination is visitation, where inmates go two times a week for 25 minutes. Th e kids are fi nally allowed to drop their arms as Whitworth talks about what it’s like for inmates who have to see their families while in jail.

Th e kids walk into the visitation room. Th ere are rows of aluminum stools, small glass windows, and telephones hooked to chords but no dials. Th ey sit as their families walk into the room, on the other side of the glass. one mom is already crying as she picks up the phone to talk to her son, the bathroom boy. When the visitation ends and the kids are told it’s time to go, Bathroom Boy’s fi sts are in a ball. His is breathing hard, his is head down, and a tear rolls down his nose. His arms are shaking. He refuses eye contact with anyone.

Five minutes later, it’s over, and the kids are fi nally released to their parents. Bathroom boy, still crying, goes up to his mom and gives her a hug. It was only two hours.

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