Robbery. Burglary. Gangs.

The six teens from Joplin Youth Center who formed a work crew Wednesday each had a criminal past. And yet, as they hefted their tools and headed down the Borrego Trail at Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park, they mostly looked their ages — 14 to 16 years old.

They had the same bounce, the same youthful faces as any group of teenagers, though sometimes mixed with a darker expression.

“They’ve lived a little more life than most of us,” said deputy juvenile correctional officer Sean Hayes. “Guns, violence, drugs.”

In a way that’s the point of the “Habitat Improvement Program,” say Hayes and supervising juvenile correctional officer David Kincaid.

Hayes and Kincaid thought up the name two weeks ago but have been taking youngsters from from the youth center into the park to do trail work for the past year and a half.

The idea is to help steer them toward life as a typical teenager — and away from one of crime and imprisonment.

And by the young men’s own accounts, the formula worked out by Hayes and Kincaid — hard, sweat-drenched work in a natural setting — appears to be having the hoped-for effect.

“I think it’s awesome,” said Jake, 15, of San Clemente, who is incarcerated at Joplin for robbery but wants to be a pro surfer when he turns 18 — and, he hopes, to continue helping park rangers at Whiting Ranch.

(The Register and the Orange County Probation Department agreed to identify the minors only by first name, and not to show their faces.)

“I like helping with cleanups,” Jake said. “I like making it better. I like helping the animals, too, so they can live in a clean environment.”

The work helps build “character,” he said. “It helps you work things out with other kids, helps build better relationships.”

The teens who work the trails, a kind of elite group within the Joplin Center chosen for their good behavior and work ethic, have become experts at repairing trail damage in a matter of minutes. They know the names of native and non-native plants; they even make their own recommendations on how best to, say, cut a drainage channel, or trim back a bank of willows.

And they’re getting ideas.

Pablo, 16, of Garden Grove, said he was serving a short sentence for resisting arrest, and has another month to go.

“I like doing this, like a job,” he said. “A county park ranger. I’d like to do that.”

He said he and the other members of the crew have seen a variety of wildlife, such as lizards, squirrels and deer.

“I (had) never seen one for real, till I got here,” Pablo said of the deer. “It was amazing, just seeing them.”

Like many things associated with landscape-scorching wildfires, the program evolved from a mix of improvisation and necessity.

The 2007 Santiago Fire left Whiting Ranch a toasted, eroded mess, full of trail ruts and dangerous snags of dead vegetation.

But there was a shortage of help, a problem that persists two years later: money is tight, and ranger Vicky Malton says there are only three staff members for a park covering more than 4,000 acres with 20 miles of trails.

Plus, the Joplin crews work for free.

That’s how the probation department’s “Highway Improvement Program” became the “Habitat Improvement Program,” retaining its acronym, HIP.

On Wednesday, the group began by trying to smooth out a bumpy section of trail — only to discover a concrete culvert and road crossing that had been buried under thick brush and more than a foot of washed-out soil.

In a few minutes, what looked like an impenetrable wall of willows, cattails and other vegetation was gone, the outline of the concrete culvert beginning to take shape as the work crew clanked away with shovels, a rake, a pickax and gas-powered weed cutters.

Hector, 16, said he will be released on Sunday after serving four months on a probation violation; he was on probation for gun charges, he said, and had been a shooting victim.

His next stop will likely be a boarding school on a military base.

“Now I want to see a better side of life,” Hector said.

Working at Whiting Ranch has been a good way to relieve stress, he said, though he has another career goal in mind.

“I want to be a counselor or therapist, to help individuals like myself.”

Malton, the senior park ranger, said the Joplin work crews are a “God send.”

“This is why I love you guys here,” Malton, the park ranger who sometimes helps supervise, told the group. “There’s no way I could do this myself.”

Joplin Youth Center

Established: 1956.
Location: A rustic setting in the foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains above Trabuco Canyon.
Operator: Orange County Probation Department.
Capacity: 64 boys, ages 13-16.
Programs: Boys are typically ordered to the facility by Juvenile Court for 30 to 90 days. Besides attending school, the boys do custodial work, help in the kitchen and are involved in other duties. They take part in community programs outside the facility, such as helping disabled children in the classroom or working with the homeless.
Headlines: Three teens tried to escape the facility in December, 2008, but were caught. The center was evacuated because of the approaching Santiago Fire in 2007, but was undamaged by the fire. The center was marked for closure in 2004 because of state budget cuts, but managed to remain open. And the center ran afoul of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2002 after mistakenly bulldozing 40 acres of protected habitat.
Source: OC Probation Department, Register files

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