Firemen Salvage Lives Of Youthful Offenders
“These kids lack parental guidance. Often they come from broken homes, a split family. They may be involved with drugs. They can relate to a fire fighter as somebody stable in society who provides a big brother or father image and gives them a chance to rap.”
That’s how Dick Mascarenas, training center instructor for the San Jose, Calif., Fire Department, described the Firefighter Youth Assistance Program (FYAP) begun in 1976 in cooperation with local juvenile probation officials.
Worked out between San Jose Chief John Gerhard, now retired, and the Juvenile Probation Department of Santa Clara County, the FYAP started as a one-year pilot program for a limited area. Within a year, however, it was opened up to potentially cover the whole county.
The Juvenile Probation Department serves a population of over a million. The largest municipal jurisdiction is the City of San Jose (pop. 560,000) covering 150 square miles. During fiscal 19761977, the juvenile probation workload included 21,827 non-traffic cases. About 9000 of these involved juveniles such as truants or runaways whose offenses would not be considered illegal if committed by an adult. Many of the other 13,000 cases involved only minor crimes.
Advantages of program
The usual probation officer supervision for either type of offender has several shortcomings. Often the officer can meet with the juvenile for counseling only by traveling a long way. Except at those special times, the officer isn’t available in the offender’s neighborhood. Besides, the probation officer is part of the legal establishment. The offender may see him as an adversary, not a helper.
Fire fighters serving as counselors can overcome these drawbacks.
As Mascarenas pointed out, “The fire station will be relatively close to the youth’s home, often in a strategic area where there is a high concentration of young people in trouble. To the youth, the fire fighter is a ‘stationary’ person with a place in the community, a focus of socio-economic stability.”
The only offenders eligible for the FYAP are pre-court (not yet tried or sentenced) males who have parental permission to take part. Most are younger than 16.
Workings of the FYAP have been developed jointly by the probation department and a fire fighter coordinator selected by the San Jose Fire Department. The coordinator’s duties include:
- Making sure the entire fire department is aware of the program and how it works,
- Recruiting fire fighter volunteers in the station areas where they are needed,
- Matching the volunteer’s abilities and interests to the client’s needs for each referral from the probation department, and working with the deputy probation officer to set up the proper fire fighter contact and
- Overseeing the results, including issuing activity reports.
The FYAP now involves 33 volunteers, mostly in seven fire stations. About 50 youths have been referred thus far, sometimes four or five at once at a single station, with eight to ten being in the program during any one month. Both the fire and probation departments are now working to expand the volunteer force in the most strategic areas so the FYAP referrals can be increased.
Trained for counseling
Volunteers get two days formal training by the county in court procedures and other legal matters affecting their task, perhaps including a visit to youth detention facilities. Once a referral is made, the probation officer brings the youth to the fire fighter and then keeps in touch on progress during the first two weeks and every other month thereafter. Volunteer and client are typically associated for at least four months.
During that time, the youth may visit the fire fighter during duty hours any time during the day. What if the company responds to an alarm during a visit?
“No problem,” Mascarenas explained. “Each youth gets instruction on how to behave if the company has to go out and leave him behind in quarters, and he signs a statement agreeing to it.”
As in other successful probation counseling programs, contact is maintained off the job as well as during duty hours. Special county driving permits are available, so that if the volunteer is driving his clients anywhere, he is covered by county liability insurance besides his own.
Said Mascarenas, “The men take these kids to ball games and on picnics. One station has an archery expert who is teaching them.
Rising success rate
“Many youths have no real communication with other adults. The volunteers bring out why they can’t talk, discuss why they should go to school, and so on. Some have really improved. In many cases, there has been no second offense, and the kids have dropped out of the program because they don’t need it any more. Our success rate was 15 percent the first year and is rising. Rapport has been extremely good.”
The offenses committed by youths referred to the FYAP are the less serious ones, so the program can make it possible to straighten out behavior problems before they lead to more serious crimes.
There are obvious benefits to the fire service in Santa Clara County. One is reinforcement of the “good guy” image of the fire fighter in his community. Another is that the juvenile offenses which the FYAP can help control (vandalism, truancy, drug abuse) often result in fires. Fewer offenses mean less fire damage.
Gerhard once stated, “A program such as this which pairs fire fighter volunteers with troubled youths is a very valuable step in the direction of alleviating juvenile problems.”
