At Camp David Gonzalez in Los Angeles County, California, some low-level juvenile offenders are given the opportunity to face an environment that has the potential to be more frightening than the ghettos of LA-- an empty stage, a spotlight, and an audience of their peers awaiting an opening night performance.  

Good behavior earns juveniles the right to participate in a theatre group made possible by a partnership between the Los Angeles County Department of Probation and the professional writers and actors of the Unusual Suspects Theatre Company, a non-profit organization that trains juvenile offenders to write, produce and act in plays that encourage nonviolent resolutions to conflict and address experiences with poverty, abuse, drugs, parental abandonment and racism.

"We put them in a safe environment and its amazing what you discover is really going on inside them," said Sally Fairman, project manager for Unusual Suspects.
Besides providing young offenders with a therapeutic emotional outlet, the drama program has also alleviated tension between rival gangs at several juvenile residences, even those with high-risk violent offenders, according Fairman.   

"It is really hard to hate someone once you've created art with them," said Fairman. "When we go there [juvenile facilities], we randomly place kids in groups and sometimes kids from rival gangs end up together."

Volunteers from Unusual Suspects, who assist the juveniles in writing and acting, are trained by Probation Department staff to safely interact with juveniles ranging from high-risk to low-level offenders. The theatre group also coordinates its efforts within the security framework of each particular facility they visit.   

Unusual Suspects has worked with several group homes and juvenile detention facilities since it was founded in 1993 as means to promote community reunification in wake of the LA riots. With the help of the Department of Children and Family Services, the program began in foster care residences. Six years later, through a partnership with the Department of Probation, workshops were added for 14 to 18-year-old high-risk offenders in Central Juvenile Hall in downtown LA.

Like any corrections program, there are safety concerns involved that make some security personnel at juvenile detention facilities reticent to the idea.

"There was some resistance at first just because it was a new idea," said Fairman.

"But, by the end, they always wanted us back because they said it really reduced tension in the hall. They ask us back over and over again."

Fairman said she and her colleagues believe that participation in Unusual Suspects also lessens the likelihood a juvenile will re-offend. And there is research to back it up, she said.  

Arts Programs and Rehabilitation

In 1983, Dr. Lawrence Brewster, a Sociology Professor at California State University at San Jose, studied the effects that arts programs had on adult correctional institutions. His study found that corrections facilities offering arts programs reduced inmate violence by 75-81 percent and, with fewer incidents and repeat offenses, the facility saved close to double the cost of the program in security and medical expenses. By 1987, the study found that arts programs had lowered recidivism rates by 51 percent.

These results eventually led to statewide funding for arts programming in adult corrections. There is no such statewide programming for juveniles, however. Fairman hopes that Unusual Suspects can change that. 

For the past year, Unusual Suspects has been working with UCLA to develop a juvenile version of Brewster's study. They are in the middle of the first sampling period in their attempt to measure what percentage of juveniles involved in the program re-offend, when they re-offend, and what type of crimes they commit when they do.

In the current system, an estimated 91 percent of juveniles already in the California correctional system will re-offend and more than half of that number will be rearrested for violent crimes, according to the California State Senate Joint
Committee on Prison and Construction Operations.

Fairman said she and her colleagues are confident that the results of the UCLA study will show a sharp difference in recidivism rates between juveniles who worked with Unusual Suspects and those that did not.

"There has never been a study on how arts programs affect juveniles," said Fairman. "We want our study to get legislative action in the state and eventually, we want to create a national model for our program."

But for now, Unusual Suspects is working with Camp David Gonzalez, a detention facility for low-level juvenile offenders aimed at providing a structured work experience, vocational training, education, and specialized tutoring.

"It is an excellent program," said Eric Ufondu, director of Camp David Gonzalez. "Right after each play you see big changes in the kids characters and they all look forward to the next one."

Ufondu said that he believes participation in the program "absolutely" contributes to the rehabilitation of juveniles at his camp. "If the kids who have never had any opportunity have a hidden talent, it remains enclosed until someone brings it out of them." 

The Need to Rehabilitate Juveniles in California

Approximately 100 juveniles participate in Unusual Suspects each year and the organization has plans to expand to other facilities and return to working with high-risk offenders in the future.

"It is our mission to provide services to kids who are not getting them," said Fairman. "They [high-risk juvenile offenders] are ones who are not getting them."
 
After completing a needs assessment to prove the value of their program, Unusual Suspects estimates that 13,200 juveniles living in Los Angeles will pass through one or more of the county's juvenile institutions before they turn 18. And because the average stay for a youth at a detention facility is 3-12 months, the need to focus on the rehabilitation of juveniles returning to society is paramount, according to Fairman.

With average medical cost of incarcerating a youth topping out at $720 million a year for Los Angeles County, Unusual Suspects argues that focusing on rehabilitation at the earliest stage possible is also in the best interest of society's pocketbook.

Fairman said most juveniles respond to the program in a positive way and some alumni even return to Unusual Suspects to work with the staff.

According to Fairman, one participant named José sent Unusual Suspects a letter of thanks that said: "You are my angels that came to my aid... I love every single one of you... You were my family for the 12 weeks we worked with each other. If only we met each other earlier."

Drama Therapy

Travis Merrell, a registered drama therapist who has treated juveniles and now works with adult correctional facilities, believes treating offenders using theatrical techniques, like role playing and recreating criminal acts or traumatic experiences, can be valuable to the process of rehabilitation.

"Drama is a distancing technique," he said. "It is not an excuse for their behavior, but it helps them to see what they've done by allowing them to tell the story through someone else's eyes." 

Juvenile criminals often suffer from an inability to feel anything other than anger and emptiness, according to Merrell. Drama therapy puts them in touch with their own sense of loss and pain, which in turn, puts them in touch with what they have done and the pain they have brought others.

"It connects them to their own emotions and makes them empathize with their victims," said Merrell. "Without victim empathy, rehabilitation can't occur."
 Fairman added that many juveniles in the Unusual Suspects program come from violent or abusive homes and grow up thinking violence is the only way to resolve conflict.

"In drama, you need conflict to make a play interesting," she said. "Then, that conflict must be resolved. When we practice this with them [juveniles], three quarters of the time, someone pulls out an imaginary gun to end the conflict."

When the participants turn to violence during role-play, Fairman said the trained volunteers from Unusual Suspects then ask the actors to play out the same conflict, only this time without resorting to violence.

The actors and the other participants watching always come to the conclusion that the dialogue and internal analysis of the nonviolent resolution is not only far more interesting, but it is the right moral choice, according to Fairman.

The learning experience climaxes when the juveniles perform a play they have written in front of hundreds of their peers.

Despite the potential for ridicule among the juvenile population, Fairman said the plays are always a success and that the young actors often receive standing ovations from their fellow residents.

"And sometimes," she said, "There isn't a dry eye in the house."