AUDREY REED
News Editor
Two weeks ago, I sat across the table from a young man, a father and a prisoner in a tinged white T-shirt and bright orange pants. Our task for the evening: to write a personal essay about his experience as a teenage father and minor offender — as they are called — at Camp David Gonzales. There are about dozen other minors who also have children. The essay will be printed in the camp newspaper “Behind the Wall.”
Since last spring I have volunteered with the publication, helping the minors brainstorm and write stories for the newspaper that comes out once every six weeks.
In my time at Camp David, I have seen many minors come and go and have had a very real brush with the California justice system.
At times, when I interact with the minors, who can be as old as 19, I must remind myself that I am in a prison and that this guy who I was just joking around with has committed a crime.
I try not to think about the cars that they’ve stolen, the gang that they’ve joined or even the people who they’ve killed. Rarely do I ask why they are in Camp David. That reality would deter me from returning.
Even this mental block can’t blind the reality that the future is, more often than not, grim for these minors.
In this category, I put the boy with his gang’s name tattooed across his neck (which is the equivalent to a target where he comes from) or the minors who will be put back into the same situation of substance abuse and gang banging. It’s not that I don’t want to see these boys succeed. However, even though I force myself to be blind to their past, I am concerned about their future.
In many ways, Camp David is the last bit of hope for these guys. The next crime they commit will be as an adult, with far harsher consequences. In the more drastic cases, they could be killed if they don’t change their lifestyle.
This life and death situation is why I go back. I don’t have any sort of gift for working with young people. Outside of speaking Spanish, I have very little in common with most of the minors.
But I do understand that they need every possible experience to improve their odds at coming out of Camp David as a reformed person who can be of use to society and their families.
Last week, the minor who shared with me his feelings about being a father, pulled me aside as we were walking together back to the dorm after newspaper class. He wanted to show me photos of his girlfriend and son. I got the feeling that he was waiting since last week to show me the pictures.
Taped neatly inside his notebook were a few pages of pictures with captions running underneath. When I saw this minor with his family, I saw why working at Camp David is important.
10-06-2005