Troubled boys at a detention camp in Malibu strive, through structure, discipline and even poetry, to redefine themselves.
By David Wallace/Special to The Malibu Times
Last week, we began our exclusive look inside Camp Vernon Kilpatrick, a county juvenile detention camp near Malibu where unique lifestyle enrichment programs for inmates were pioneered a decade ago. This week, national correspondent David Wallace’s report concludes with a description of a day in the lives of the 100-plus teenagers incarcerated at Kilpatrick and an emotionally charged poetry session for inmates that brought tears to many eyes.
It’s cool this late November evening in the Santa Monica Mountains above Malibu, yet the 100-plus teenage inmates of Camp Kilpatrick-each sporting GI haircuts-seem comfortable enough wearing their county-issued uniforms: white T-shirts, khaki or forest green pants, and black-and-white tennis shoes. Later, when the weather turns colder, they will be issued heavy dark brown canvas jackets.
Dinner is over and most have gathered in the camp’s large open space, dedicated to football, soccer, baseball, basketball and track practice. Various teams-known as the Kilpatrick High School Mustangs-play local schools like Oaks Christian High School in Westlake Village, Crossroads in Santa Monica or Malibu High, where they will be playing soccer on Dec. 3 and 6.
Enclosing the central practice field are several low, concrete block buildings housing the camp’s administrative offices, a dining hall, seven classrooms and three dormitories. One dorm, a security facility, contains 20 individual rooms for boys who are sick (a nurse is on duty 40 hours a week), broke a camp rule or are having trouble adjusting to communal living.
Surrounding the floodlit, 12-acre site is a 15-foot chain-link fence topped with razor wire. There are no guards in the strict sense of the word among the dozen or so staffers (mostly probation officers), yet, each year, fewer than two inmates try to escape.
“Over the 34 years I’ve been at Camp Kilpatrick,” says Probation Officer Tom Barr, “the types of crimes the kids have committed have become more serious, but their behavior at the camp has actually improved. I think most of the boys realize this is somewhat of a last chance, and after they’ve been here and discover the food isn’t bad, that there is recreation and that someone is listening to them… perhaps the reality doesn’t fit the preconceived notion.”
The regular dorms are basic. Each can house up to 55 inmates in military-style bunks, and each is supervised by a probation officer (no inmate is ever alone inside the dorm). There are several television sets in each dorm and recreational equipment like CD players is available. No inmate may bring any possessions to the camp except for personal hygiene and letter-writing material. Lose the razor wire, and it could be a U.S. Army boot camp.
But instead of long marches, marksmanship practice and parades, each weekday at Kilpatrick is filled with year-round academic schooling, sports programs and the innovative enrichment opportunities described more fully last week. But, like Army recruits, the boys rise early at 6:30 a.m., when the lights go on and, after making their bunks and cleaning up, assemble in the dining hall at 7 a.m. for breakfast. At 8:20 a.m., they begin five hours of daily schooling supplied by the L.A. County Office of Education (classes number no more than 17 students). From 11:40 a.m. until 1 p.m., they’re back in the dorm and at lunch. Then, except for some 50 boys participating in sports programs who break for practice at 1:30, they return to classes until 2:40. The period from 3 p.m. until 5 p.m. is free time when many inmates shoot baskets or lift weights.
After dinner, from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m., those participating in the enrichment programs or receiving tutoring go to their classrooms; others are in the dorms for quiet time during which they are expected to do homework or write letters. Showers follow, and it’s lights out at 9:30 p.m.
On weekends, the boys enjoy more recreation programs and can attend religious services (Catholic on Saturday, Protestant on Sunday). Sunday afternoon is given over to parental visits, although less than half the inmates “get visits of any kind on a regular basis,” according to Barr. Most welcome having structured days, possibly for the first time in their lives.
We visited a poetry-writing session for more than a dozen youths that provided the most dramatic example of the enlightened rehabilitation efforts at the camp. Mentored by DreamYard/L.A., a nonprofit organization headquartered in downtown Los Angeles, the session was led by facilitators Rob Thelusma and Keith Jones, 22, once an incarcerated minor at Camp Miller. Begun in 1997 by screenwriter Chris Henrikson, 35, DreamYard/L.A., which mentors similar programs in two other camps, was founded on his belief that the creative process is one of the most powerful forces available for personal transformation and social change. They have been working with Kilpatrick’s boys for two years.
As each boy read his poem for critique by his peers and the session’s leaders, it swiftly became apparent that writing poetry was only a vehicle for getting to far deeper emotional roots shared by most of the youths. Some were gang members, and all became deeply involved in one another’s themes of loss, anger, alienation and, somewhat surprisingly, the need for more discipline in their lives (discipline, not authority). When confronted by such highly charged pleas as that of one African-American boy, some even wept. His poem read in part: “Eventually U have to worry about/Big bro lying died in an outcast casket… And the world wonders why we plead/Lord, help us be.” Or another boy’s: “When I look up at the blue night sky/I feel blue inside/Try to hold back these emotions/but they won’t hide/My own people don’t want me to make it/I can’t go on forever trying to fake it.”
“In many ways it resembles group therapy,” Henrikson says. “We use poetry as a means for the guys to redefine themselves, and it’s not unusual for them to burst into tears. In almost every class a kid connects to something really deep within himself, and it can be scary for him. Camp Kilpatrick is all about such personal transformations,” he adds.
For many outsiders, the experience of watching such cries from the hearts of youths-who are all too often simply written off by society-can be nearly overwhelming. “These kids are amazing,” said one volunteer.
However, despite some very bad mistakes along the way, many of the inmates are just like other teens struggling to grow up who need all the positive input they can get.
And, at least for this writer, that is the revelation of Camp Kilpatrick.