EPISODE TWO: "Young, Armed and Dangerous"

NARRATION:
Next on In Search of Law and Order.

PORTER (VO): In October four people are shot at a recreation center. Teenage gang members are blamed.

GEORGE BUSH: I believe that kids under the age of 18 years old who carry a gun without adult supervision should be automatically put in a boot camp or detention center.

TERRI MOORE: I can't remember when the last time was that I tried an adult. I don't know when the last time we tried somebody over the age of twenty-one.

JUAN SANCHEZ: What we're seeing is more youngsters being locked up, they're being locked up for a longer period of time, and they're being locked up at an earlier age.

GUS GARCIA: I used to believe, once a criminal, always a criminal, but now I understand you know, if you look into their lives, the past, you know, it all has to do with their families.

NARRATION:
America locks up more people than any other country. And no state is tougher than Texas. For the past five years its corrections budget has grown nearly twice as fast as spending on education. But pushed by the soaring cost of prisons, Texas has developed new ways to keep violent youth from spending their lives behind bars. This is the story of those efforts.

Fourteen-year-old Daniel Hernandez Jr. is one of more than 1.7 million people doing time in the United States. His year in the Texas Youth Commission, or TYC, will cost at least $30,000--more than sending him to college. Like many young offenders, Daniel got into trouble because of a gang.

DANIEL: I'm in a gang, you know, I'm in Rock Island, from Fort Worth. I had a nine millimeter, a 16 shot nine, with hollow points in it, and I was walkin' down this one street, and then there was this one dude from another gang. I guess he knew me from, from wherever, you know, I guess he heard rumors about me or somethin'. So he just started mouthin' off to me, and he came closer to me like he was gonna, you know, rush me. So I pulled out the gun from my waistband, and I just point that nine at him.

NARRATION:
Daniel didn't pull the trigger, but he joined the more than 100,000 juveniles locked up in America today.

DR. JUAN SANCHEZ: The children that are getting locked up are children who are poor. And in Texas poverty is synonymous with, with minority. Because 92% of the children that are poor in the state of Texas are African-American and Latinos.

NARRATION:
Despite its reputation for locking people up and throwing away the key, Texas has actually been struggling to keep Daniel Hernandez Jr. out of prison. Until his recent arrest, Daniel lived with his mother and five brothers in a run-down section of Fort Worth. By thirteen he was stealing cars and using drugs. He was later arrested for attempting assault with a gun but was allowed to avoid prison if he wore an electronic monitor and stayed at home, where his family lived in poverty.

CHRISTINA HERNANDEZ: It's already two months without water. I mean what I make is not enough. I mean, I'm barely surviving. Either, either, uh...I just let go one bill until I catch up with the other bill, and then I just turn the other bill on. Just like that.

NARRATION:
Daniel Hernandez, Sr. can't help his family because he's doing 45 years for shooting a cop. He is hoping for parole in 2005 and swears he'll go straight. But each time a person goes to prison, the more likely he is to return. And being behind bars also puts his sons at high risk of following in his footsteps.

ROGER GRAEF: The single greatest predictor of future offending is having a father or older brother who is convicted before a child is 10. That means that the very success of the justice system in catching and locking up someone is likely to produce future offenders in their children or younger brothers.

CHRISTINA HERNANDEZ: The problem with Daniel is, he's trying to be too much like his dad, and I try and show him not to, you know, that he's not like his father, he's himself, that he has to be himself. I told him, you're good, you're smart, be that way.

DR. JUAN SANCHEZ: There are communities that we can identify where most of these kids come from. And you're talking about neighborhoods where you've got the worst schools, you've got the worst teachers, you have no medical care, you have no jobs, you have poor housing, you have, you know, it's riddled with gangs, you've got drug lords, you've got no fathers, you've got...and out of these communities you expect these kids to succeed. It isn't going to happen.

PITCHER: Rock that birdie.

INFIELDERS: Right down the line, right down the line...

NARRATION:
Despite its huge adult prison population,Texas treats most young offenders as kids who made mistakes. Ft. Worth probation has devised an unusually wide range of alternatives to prison. As part of his sentence, Daniel must attend the Pathways Learning Center, which tries to teach young offenders how to play by a new set of rules.

KERENSA BERRY-LOGAN: OK, you ready? Do you think that you can get respect if you don't give it?

CHARLES ANTHONY: Yeah, when I slap a girl accidentally... KERENSA BERRY-LOGAN: That's not an accident...that's not an accident-we're gonna talk about that later. BOY: If you slap a girl she'll respect you. KERENSA BERRY-LOGAN: No, let's talk about respect....So. Is that respect or is that fear? BOY: What? CHARLES: Fear. KERENSA BERRY-LOGAN: That's fear. Thank you. Let me ask you this, Charles. Did you have rules at your other school? Before you came here? DANIEL: Yeah, but I never followed them, though. The principal at my school, he tried to kick me out of school 'cuz I was getting, I was in a fight with this other gang member at my school, and well....well, I fought him, it took me three years to catch up with him though. I fought him, I was going to.... KERENSA BERRY-LOGAN: Well, do you think that fighting is a reason to stay in school? DANIEL: You got to do what you got to do.... KERENSA BERRY-LOGAN: So you made a choice. DANIEL: Yeah, I made a choice. KERENSA BERRY-LOGAN: We approach children where they are, we don't say, come to us and this is what we'll do to fix you, we approach them in their reality, in their environment and work within it. We're teaching the things that you've got to have in order to make it in this world. Things that, that they're not getting at home.

KERENSA BERRY-LOGAN: Does gang violence affect anybody else besides you? JOSEPH: Me. KERENSA BERRY-LOGAN: It affects you and who else? I said anybody besides you. JOSEPH: My family. KERENSA BERRY-LOGAN: Your family. Daniel, you said no. DANIEL: They don't need to know the things I do. The things I do is my problem. KERENSA BERRY-LOGAN: OK, let me ask you this. Are gangs good for the community, yes or no? BOY: Yeah. JOSEPH: They keep the population down. KERENSA BERRY-LOGAN: Oh, so y'all are doing it for population overgrowth, huh? JOSEPH: Yeah. KERENSA BERRY-LOGAN: You disagree, so you tell me why gangs are not good for the community? CHARLES :'Cuz you get yourself killed.

NARRATION:
In the mid-90s, Ft. Worth had one of the state's highest crime rates. Police and prosecutors were especially alarmed by the steep rise in juvenile arrests. Many involved kids who belonged to gangs and carried guns.

TERRI MOORE: We first saw the first wave of gang violence here in about '89, and it took us a year to realize that it was different. It had its own culture, it had its own, uh, language, it had its own lifestyle.

RUBEN HERNANDEZ: Just get outta here. Cause I-I-we think y'all up to something no good, man.

NARRATION:
Few people are more familiar with this lifestyle than the Ft. Worth police, who try to keep youth from committing crimes with a high-profile presence on neighborhood streets.

RUBEN HERNANDEZ :During the day time all your little young gangbangers hang out here. And, uh, they'll shuffle their dope from around the corner, in the house back off Grayson. It's a game of, of tag-you tag them, let them know you're here, that they got to move on, I mean, it's not against the law basically just to hang around.

CHIEF THOMAS WINDHAM: I've been here 32 years in this business and I have not seen any city that was able to arrest their way out of a crime problem.

KID: Man, I'm not no climbing up on no high th-(inaudible)

RUBEN HERNANDE : Come on, y'all, y'all got to get off the parking lot. Let's go.

CHIEF WINDHAM: If we believe a person is a gang member, if we believe a person is a threat to other individuals in the neighborhood, we're going to hassle that person as much as we can do so legally.

RUBEN HERNANDEZ: They're throwing their gang signs...Say, man, c'mere. C'mere guys. C'mere. Stand by, we got one in the house with an assault rifle right now, we're trying to get him.

2D OFFICER: ...if you move towards our boys...

CHIEF WINDHAM: We're going to take as many guns from those types of individuals as we can. Right now, a juvenile, a minor, in this state can possess a-what I call a long gun, a rifle or a shotgun. Uh, police can't take that gun from them.

2D OFFICER: They have five rocks, crack cocaine, a little bit of marijuana, what's left of a marijuana cigarette.

RUBEN HERNANDEZ: This juvenile here, I believe he's 15, we're gonna charge him with possession of a....unlawful possession of a controlled substance. The guy I originally had stopped we're gonna go ahead and probably just get him for walking in the roadway where a sidewalk is provided and evading arrest or detention. And then the other youth with the assault rifle we're gonna see if he has any warrants. If not we're gonna probably have to just F.I. him and, uh, make a report and cut him loose.

DR. LINDA REYES: We're going to have to go out and start confronting the circumstances that are makin' it easy for kids to get guns. We'll have to do somethin' about that. Gotta get guns off the street, we gotta get drugs off the street. Adolescent males in particular, have always gotten engaged in, you know, fights and, uh, aggression, oftentimes it's, is a part of many young males' growing-up years. But something that used to end up in a black eye, or somebody getting beaten up, is much more likely to go bad when the kid has got a gun in his hand.

ROGER GRAEF: What we're really talking about is a small proportion of children, who have nothing to lose, who get guns at a very early age, and who are likely to kill each other and in the process other people as well. That's what we're worried about, is juvenile homicide.

REPORTER: Since Monday night the streets in this upscale southwest Ft. Worth neighborhood have remained strangely silent, the people full of fear. The fear spread after retired insurance executive Willard Pratt was killed. Police arrested three teenagers, 14, 15, and 16.

NARRATION:
The two younger teens would be tried in juvenile court, which will seek to rehabilitate them. But 16-year-old Robert Valle will stand trial in an adult court that will be more punitive. Like many states, Texas has now changed its laws to allow some 14-year-olds to be tried as adults.

TERRI MOORE: It's easy to know what to do about the one that pulled the trigger. Once they pull that trigger, if they've actually killed somebody, then there's but one thing we can do and that is lock 'em up.

TERRI MOORE: This person was the shooter in a completely senseless, ridiculous crime, and he was at the right age, so the law allowed someone sixteen years old to be certified.

TERRI MOORE: Willard Pratt was two blocks away from his house when he was gunned down by that man right there. This defendant, along with two of his buddies, they were plotting to go out and do some robbing. First they were going to jack a dope house and steal the money, and then they decided that, um, well, let's see, let's go hit a convenience store. And of course let's take a deadly weapon with us as well, so they took a twelve-gauge shotgun. And they went to the convenience store and that didn't pan out. And they went cruising, looking for a victim. And they found one. Old man out walking his dog. And Little Robert-not this defendant-gets out and attacks Mr. Pratt. He attacks him, he jumps on him, he's demanding the money. Mr. Pratt doesn't have any money, ladies and gentlemen, he's out walking the dog. And the evidence will show that Big Robert got the shotgun, aimed it at Mr. Pratt, and then blew his life away.

TERRI MOORE: So can you save somebody like that, you know, I don't know, I mean, he's old enough to have made the choice whether or not to end Mr. Pratt's life, and he's not savable now.

NARRATION:
Roberts' troubles started almost as soon as he was born to a teenage mother. His parents were in an unhappy marriage that lasted only a few years.

SONIA AFANADOR: I was abused and, uh, Robert saw it and...that was terrible. You know, when you...when he was born and you hold him in your arms, you just expect the best for him...(crying) and then when something, you know, like this happens, you just, you just...really there's no answers. You just wonder why...I didn't hardly kiss him. I was young and I was in and out of the house, you know, and I think that's why he went to try to...to, you know, try to...to fit in, where he wasn't supposed to. Try to be accepted. Try to be something that he wasn't.

NARRATION:
The night of the murder, Robert and his friends drank four six-packs of beer, and three bottles of gin, then smoked some marijuana. The combination of drugs, alcohol and guns made them especially bold.

TERRI MOORE: Let's look at what he told his buddies. You might understand the "why" part of this, because does it make sense, that you kill a man that's out walking his dog, that obviously doesn't have any money? And what did this defendant say? And I'm gonna quote him, and it's nasty, but I'm gonna say it. He said, "Well, *** that ***." OK? Well, what does that mean? He killed Mr. Pratt-you know why? He killed Mr. Pratt because Mr. Pratt had the audacity to be out walking his dog without any money. He killed him because he came up with empty hands. He was mad. So when Little Robert said, "He ain't got no money," he said "Well, *** that ***" and that's when he blew him away. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is intent.

NARRATION:
Robert Valle was sentenced to life in prison. He'll serve at least 40 years at a cost to taxpayers of roughly $1 million dollars. But even the district attorney thinks taking Robert off the streets will do little to make Ft Worth safer.

TERRI MOORE: What gets sort of, I guess, uh, depressing in this job is, you know, you, you think you want to make a difference, and you want to make the streets safer and you want people to be able to live freer and, and, and really all you're doing is taking one violent offender off the street-and that's fine, that's, that's good, but I know there's another one in his place out there.

Yet when we have these kids, that go out to juvenile, and maybe they're there for something petty, and then they come back and they're there for something a little bit more serious, that is the opportunity for us to jump in and divert. And, and we jumped in with Robert, he was on probation. But were the programs that we used, were they good enough? Were we using the right kind of programs? I think that's where we are in this criminal justice system and that's the thing for us to explore.

ROGER GRAEF: The irony of the whole criminal justice debate is that we're spending more money on prisons, we're actually treating more kids as adults, in courts, and sending them down for longer sentences, but people are still scared.

NARRATION:
Fear persists partly because most convicted offenders are eventually released on parole or probation, where their supervision is minimal. But Daniel Hernandez has been referred to TCAP, the Tarrant County Advocate Program. They're paying Chuck Phillips seven dollars an hour for up to 30 hours a week to act as a mentor and keep Daniel out of trouble.

CHUCK PHILLIPS: Are you gonna go see Santa?

DANIEL: No.

CHUCK PHILLIPS: I'm not paying no six dollars for you to go and see Santa.

CHUCK PHILLIPS: Where do you want to find a job at? What do you want to do?

DANIEL: Whatever that pays me good money. I don't want no job that pays me...

CHUCK PHILLIPS: They're all going to pay the same amount though. 'Cuz TCAP will be paying for it. It's a matter of what you want do though. What do you want to work doing? Restaurant, cars...

DANIEL: A restaurant would be nice.

VALERIE (DANIEL'S GIRLFRIEND): Hi...

DANIEL: You know what, I'm gonna go give her that ring...Valarie!

CHUCK PHILLIP:: Are you?

DANIEL:: Yeah.

CHUCK PHILLIPS: All right.

BELINDA HAMPTON: We take it for granted that everyone is working and going to school and doing all the things that most of us do. However, a lot of these families are not doing any of that, which is why their children are in trouble, which is why some of them are in trouble as well. So, uh, therefore we get them invested in addressing some of those needs that the average person has already taken care of.

DANIEL (reading): I first and foremost have expressed a desire to be employed, employed in this site, selected by myself and TCAP North.

BELINDA HAMPTON: Is that true? You're the one that's come forth and said I want a job?

DANIEL: Yeah.

BELINDA HAMPTON: OK. See, that's real important, because we don't want you to feel like we're forcing you to go to work. This is something that you're choosing to do, and that your mom's agreeing that she wants you to, am I right?

CHRISTINA HERNANDEZ: Oh yes yes yes.

DANIEL: (reading) I agree to not miss more than one time without excuse from my job. I understand that if I do, I will lose my job.

BELINDA HAMPTON: OK. Do you agree with that?

DANIEL: Yeah.

BELINDA HAMPTON: Sometimes, you know, you guys when it comes to be a Friday or a Monday, or one of those weekend days when you've got things to do with your girlfriend or with your friends, you'd much rather do that than work, and so that's why you might miss, and never call and never tell anybody anything, and then you've missed without excuse. And that's enough grounds for us to fire you and for the employer to say "Hey, I don't want that guy here, because I wanted somebody dependable."

CHRISTINA: That's what the job is all about.

BELINDA HAMPTON: It's about being dependable, being able to count on, you know?

CHUCK PHILLIPS: Just be sure and let me know if you see any of your, you know, your friends from the, uh, West Side....

DANIEL (VO): You know, he showed me a little fun and everything. He showed me, you know like, he played football with me, like you know, like a father and everything. But he was a different color, 'cuz he was white, and I was Mexican. But you know, he took me around places, you know, a father, where I never have been. We just did a lot of fun stuff together, you know, it just made me happy on the inside, that I have somebody, you know, that's willing to show me the right path, and you know, take care of me a little bit.

BELINDA HAMPTON: Oftentimes when you have an absentee parent, then you're looking for someone that's going to be pleased with something you do. And, uh, so a lot of times these gangs, these peers, uh, become the, the family that does, that's very non-judgmental, that offers you love for free, if you will.... I think we need to know who's competing for these kids' attention, we need to know who's got their attention the most.

NARRATION:
To channel young offenders' energy in a different direction, TCAP encourages local businessmen like Gus Garcia to give them jobs. TCAP contributes about $5 an hour towards their salaries.

GUS GARCIA: There's two of us here. We can have it by...takes about, uh, 35 minutes.

SEBASTIAN: Yeah.

NARRATION:
Sixteen-year-old Sebastian Muņoz was referred to TCAP after his conviction for car theft. He's been working at Garcia's tire shop for six months, and recently earned a promotion.

GUS GARCIA: He's a good worker, and he's hungry for work. Uh, he likes money. He's already got it spent, so he likes to earn it. And he likes responsibility, he really does, you can tell. I think he misses his father a lot, you can almost tell, you know his, his family's broken up, you know his father's in prison and he's alone with his mom and his brothers and sisters, and he likes, he likes being part of something.

SEBASTIAN: He lets me do everything, 'cuz I know how to work all the machines and everything, so you know it's just like, he treats me like an adult, you know, it's fun, you know, working here.

GUS GARCIA: I'm pretty tough on crime. I, uh, in fact before the program I wouldn't think I was ever gonna do this. I used to believe that once a criminal always a criminal. But now I understand, you know, if you look into their lives, the past, you know, and what they're doing, it all has to do with their families, you know, or lack of.

ROGER GRAEF: Mentoring really is a good idea, because we know that all it takes is a single adult to be interested in a young person, for them to develop normally and that adult does not have to be a parent. It can be a mentor. But the mentor mustn't be uncritical. It mustn't just say, whatever you do is alright.

NARRATION:
To keep tabs on Sebastian, Belinda Hampton calls regular meetings with his family, mentor, boss, and probation officer. They discuss his progress and his family's needs. TCAP costs less than $4500 per child. They've been successful with roughly three-quarters of the kids they've supervised.

BELINDA HAMPTON: Sebastian has wanted to get a drivers license and wants to buy a car. Gus, what do you think about him getting a car and driving around, and all that?

GUS GARCIA: It is kind of scary because we don't know how he's going to react, to having a car, you know, if he's going to be responsible or go back to, uh, picking up his homies. (Laughter.) Right?

BELINDA HAMPTON:Yeah, I think it's scary also, you know, because for all the progress you've made and all the faith that we have in you, you know, we also know about everybody else that's out there driving too and we know, I mean, I'm wondering, you know, you're driving, you're leaving Gus, you know, it's late in the evening, uh, some of the North Side home boys that may not like your particular gang drive up next to you and challenge you and y'all want to race or you want to...you know, you're gonna have, be able to be around your friends a lot more and your enemies a lot more, now that you have a car. How are you going to handle that?

SEBASTIAN: Yeah, I think I'll handle it OK but, you know, it's just that, you know when somebody wants to damage my car or do something to me that, you know, that that's going to have a problem.

BELINDA HAMPTON: I want to encourage you to kind of, be having some plans, you know, ahead of time...

SEBASTIAN: Yeah, but, well, you can't really do nothing til, you know till it happens, 'cuz, you know, what if they pull up and pull out a gun, something you know, you can't, you can't plan on that you know, what's going to happen, you just have to do what comes to you.

BELINDA HAMPTON: Well, you can plan that if somebody comes up to you and they pull, pulls out a gun that one, you're not going to have a gun under your seat to answer them back and two, that you're going to go to the nearest garage and park your car, or that you're going to drive to the nearest police station to get some help. Those are the kind of things I think you can plan.

SEBASTIAN: Yeah, but at the spur of the moment it's going to be hard to, you know, think about those things...

BELINDA HAMPTON: Well, if you got a gun underneath your seat, you bet.

BELINDA HAMPTON: He's going to be seventeen pretty soon. He's weaned off of them pretty good-because of time, not because of resistance, but because he's, he's going to college, he's doing his homework, um, he's working, he's assistant manager at this employment site that we have. He's, he's escalated to assistant manager, he supervises other employees. Uh, he's doing better at home, uh, he also has a girlfriend that takes up a lot of his time. So his gang has kind of, you know, their importance is just not as, as great as it was before.

NARRATION:
Daniel has also finished his sentence. But unlike Sebastian, he's back in limbo.

BELINDA HAMPTON: Daniel was discharged the end of December. He had gotten a job but he had not wanted to keep his job. He was dating at the time, he was more involved with his girlfriend, and really did not want to work. The thing with Daniel is that, unless he tones down the gang stuff he will be back, he will be re-referred.

DIANA VILLAREAL: Well, did you tell him the new stuff that you did? This is the new stuff that he did. Since the last time. Darker. He didn't have that last time.

LITTLE BROTHER: Just like his daddy.

DANIEL: Well, I ain't trying to be like my dad. You know, oh naw, people say I look like him, and probably, you know, trying to end up his way and stuff. But naw I ain't...I don't wanna be like him, you know? I wanna be myself.

NARRATION:
When his sentence ended, Daniel's electronic monitor was removed. TCAP's supervision also stopped, and with that he lost whatever protection the justice system gave him.

CHRISTINA HERNANDEZ: My husband had a drug problem. All the kids see was just him smoking pot and drinking. He's always been smoking pot, you know? Here in front of the kids, there in front of the kids.

TOMASA MENDEZ: So then, so they got high just by smelling it, because when they were little.

CHRISTINA HERNANDEZ: They'll stop smoking, is when their friends, stop coming around, giving it...'cuz I don't give him no money for that, I don't waste my money for that. They know it.

DANIEL: Smell like ***. Smell like crap.

CHRISTINA HERNANDEZ: He hasn't been doing no crimes.

TOMASA MENDEZ: He's been settled down ever since he got off that, you know, that monitor, he's been settled down he's-oh, he's going to say, Oh, yeah, after, I can't wait 'til this *** comes off 'cuz I 'm gonna go party here and there, but now when's it off, he was bored he was calling us that same day, when he got it off, wasn't he? He was home bored.

DANIEL: Who?

CHRISTINA AND TOMASA: You.

DANIEL: Oh.

TOMASA HERNANDEZ: That first day, remember? He was all excited 'cuz his monitor was off, and....

DANIEL: I didn't know where to go so I stayed home.

TOMASA HERNANDEZ: He didn't have nowhere to go.

DANIEL: I didn't know where to go.

Well, I can keep out of trouble, no, I know how to handle my, you know, I know...I know how to handle stuff.

CHRISTINA HERNANDEZ: One of these days, he ain't going to be too lucky, somebody will pull the trigger.

DANIEL: That's why I'm dodging.

CHRISTINA HERNANDEZ: D'you hear that? Dodge.....

DANIEL: Dodging....jump fences and hit the curb. Blend in with the grass.

CHRISTINA HERNANDEZ: The luck will though run out, I'm telling him. The luck will run out.

NARRATION:
A few months later, Daniel pointed a pistol at a rival gang member. As a repeat offender, this time he was sent to a lock up for assessment. Prison will cost Texas ten times what it spent to keep Daniel at home under TCAP'S supervision.

CHRISTINA HERNANDEZ: It didn't take that long, for him to do somethin', if he did it. Trouble, trouble's always gonna be there when Daniel's around, or he's not home...to take care of him. To Daniel, I said, 'Oh well.' I said, 'This time,' I told him, 'this time I think you really did it. You know? You really blew it.'

DANIEL: I wasn't thinkin' about the consequences of whatever would happen to me. But it's just that I was high, and you know, I didn't really care and stuff. It just...probably it was the drugs, I don't know. I carried a weapon mostly every day when I was out on the streets, you know, 'cuz I live my life every day like it's my last one. 'Cuz you know, I always think that, you know, some day, maybe this might be my last day. So I always carry a weapon. So that day, when I carried that gun, you know...and then there was this one dude from another gang. He was with some girl in his front yard. Well, the only reason I wanted to shoot that person-his girlfriend or whatever, was outside-was I didn't want no witnesses.

NARRATION:
Daniel's casual approach is typical of hotheaded youth who treat killing as no more real than a scene from a movie. But prison does not make them confront the harm they've done. In 1984 Steve Figueroa was a teen with a gun. He'd set up a drug deal that went badly wrong.

REPORTER (VO) : Raynell Muskwinsky and her 20-year-old boyfriend David Lopez were found dead a week ago, both shot two times in the head, their bodies left in the back of Lopez's car, which was pulled from the bayou. Police arrested 17-year-old Steve Figueroa very early this morning at his father's home in the Heights. A juvenile has also been arrested in connection with the murderers. Police say the suspects lured Lopez to a home in northeast Houston under the pretense of making a drug deal, because they owed Lopez money.

STEVE FIGUEROA: I'm sittin' there countin' the money and he's there, you know, lookin' at the stuff. And, uh, so I get done countin' the money, and he's $500 short. And I tell him, Well, where's the rest? And he go, Well that's what I wanna' talk to you about, man, you know. You know, David owes me money man, I want you to go and knock some off the price. Soon as he said that man, it was like, you know, that was like, the trigger right there, you know? I mean, I was... I just went off, you know? So I told him, you know what man? Just forget it man. Forget everything, man. Just go in and get your money and get outta' here man, I don't need this. I don't need this ***, you know? So I grabbed the stuff to take off and walk, and he grabs my arm, and that was it right there. You know, as soon as he put his hands on me, man, I just like... you know, I had the gun, my gun right here in my pants. As soon as he touched me like that, I put the gun out like that, and shot him. You know, it was like, you know, I didn't even think about it. Then I heard Raynell, I heard her scream. You know, like a register, and I looked, and she was in the car in the driveway, and we were in the garage. I just walked over there, stuck my hand in the window, and just shot her. You know, I mean, I didn't you know, say nothin' to her, or nothin'. I just like, walked over there, and put the gun, right, you know, right in her face right here, and shot her.

NARRATION:
Raynell's mother and aunt saw Steve sent to prison for life. But the trial and verdict did nothing to ease their anguish.

GILDA MUSKWINSKY (VO) : You live that life that you think is just great that, that nothing like this will ever enter your life. You know, we were a middle class family. I had lived with the same man for 17 years, we went to mass every Sunday, you know, the whole nine yards, and you just never thought that something like this would happen, especially to a child like Raynell. They had planned on killing David all along and simply killed Raynell cause she was there.

TWYLA PERRY: You know, no matter how many times you come out here it doesn't get any easier, does it?

GILDA MUSKWINSKY: No.

GILDA MUSKWINSKY: It's so unbelievable and it's so unreal, you know, that, that you just can't think of your 17-year-old daughter being murdered. It's like the pain that you feel, I mean, imagine pain that buckles your knees. I mean, imagine pain where my son thought I was having a heart attack, you know, to, to take me to the hospital. You know, that's what you feel, just excruciating pain.

TWYLA PERRY: It's hard to believe it's been twelve years nearly. I wonder what her kids would've been like.

GILDA MUSKWINSKY: Brats.

(Laughter)

TWYLA PERRY: Yeah, it's still not easy for me to turn around and walk away from here.

GILDA MUSKWINSKY: I know it. So hard.

DAVID DOERFLER: The judicial process leaves, uh, an emptiness, a, a hole in their heart that, that legalities cannot fill. Uh, we're talking about flesh and blood people, who have, uh, suffered an atrocity that, that none of us can come close to, to imagining. And so we can provide all sorts of tougher sentences, we can, uh, go from the death penalty to, to a probationary sentence, and, and yet it doesn't address the heart of the matter which is the fact that an individual has been violated. The criminal justice system is not simply about the criminal. In fact, it begins and it should end with the victim.

NARRATION:
To help repair the emotional damage inflicted by crime, David Doerfler arranges mediation between offenders and their victims' families. A year long process started when Gilda wrote a letter to Steve.

STEVE FIGUEROA: Twelve years. You know, I never knew what you thought, what you felt. Never knew nothing. And then I read the letter and...it just, you know, it just blew my mind. And that's when I, you know, just said to myself, 'Man, I ***ed up.' Really really messed up.

GILDA MUSKWINSKY: Yep. You really did.

STEVE FIGUEROA: I just wanted to know what leads you to this, what, what, you know...

GILDA MUSKWINSKY: I....I guess from the very beginning is that, uh, I wanted to tell you how much I hurt, and I...I'm hoping that by meeting with you I think that now I can close one chapter of the book, and go on my with my life.

STEVE FIGUEROA: Nothing, nothing didn't make no sense, what happened. Everything was just.......just, you know, stupid, it was just messed up. And, and, and it just happened, it just, like, happened that way. And I didn't think about it.

GILDA MUSKWINSKY: Did you ever think about the pain that you caused my family?

STEVE FIGUEROA: Not at first.

GILDA MUSKWINSKY: I mean, you can still look in my eyes and see the pain after all these years. And that pain will never go away. Never ever. And I'd love to say that I could forgive you, Steve, but I don't think I ever will, no matter how hard I pray, I just, I honestly don't think I'll ever forgive you.

GILDA MUSKWINSKY: Do you mind looking at this album?

STEVE FIGUEROA: No.

GILDA MUSKWINSKY: It's an album that I put together because William, her brother, won't deal with her death. And it starts when she was a baby. I just want you to know that she was real. And this is a poem she wrote two weeks before she was killed. And it's called "Remember Me." And I asked her where she was going, and she said, "Mother, I won't be with you much longer." It's like God knew that she was leaving.

STEVE FIGUEROA: I'm sorry.

GILDA MUSKWINSKY: To me he hasn't changed at all. He still looks like when he, when he went on trial. In my heart of hearts I know that, that my child-being the type of child that she was-that she has forgiven him. Because that was Raynell, and so I think...I really think that that was what I felt, was, you know, maybe now that I can not hate him so, and that I can be more like my child and say-sometime down the road-that, yes, Steve, I forgive you.

NARRATION:
Although mediation may help heal Gilda's wounds, no one can predict its impact on Steve. This was his first chance to take responsibility for his crime and express remorse after more than a decade behind bars. The adult prison system does little to try to rehabilitate such serious criminals.

But Texas treats violent juveniles differently. It invests in an experiment that confronts them with what they have done. At Giddings State School violent young offenders are given one last chance to avoid adult prison. As a 16-year-old, this young man hijacked a car and broke into two apartments. He was sent to Giddings to join 300 of the most serious young offenders in Texas.

DR. CORINNE ALVAREZ-SANDERS: Every kid that's here in the Texas Youth Commission at the Giddings facility has committed a violent offense. Two-thirds of the kids here have killed somebody or attempted to kill somebody. The other third are sex offenders or have, like, aggravated kidnapping, things of that nature, but they're all violent offenses against people. And two-thirds of which are for homicidal offenses.

DR. ALVAREZ-SANDERS: You ready to get started?

MICHAEL: Yes, ma'am.

DR. ALVAREZ-SANDERS: OK. Tell us about your life. Let's start from the very earliest thing you can remember.

MICHAEL: Well, uh, my mom told me that, um, that uh, my dad, he didn't stay with my mom until, uh, I was like a year old already.

LARRY REUE: So, so they weren't married at the time you were born?

MICHAEL: No.

LARRY REUE: So like you were....you weren't like a planned child.

DR. ALVAREZ-SANDERS: It's important to begin with the life story because it's first, very important for the youth to understand the contributors to a pattern of violence, and to make those kinds of connections to them. Many of these kids don't understand those connections from their family, and how they were raised, what kinds of feelings emerge from their family, and what kinds of feelings did they later take out on innocent people, and victimize later.

MICHAEL: I didn't have...I didn't have nobody...there to, to help me. You know? Felt that, um, didn't nobody love me, that, um, I was by myself.

KID: Would he hit you or would he beat you? How would he hit you?

MICHAEL: He'd tell me to go outside and get a board. And uh, I'd go outside and I-I'd get a board, and um, and I'd bring it inside and give it to him, walk to the room.

KID: How many times did he hit you?

MICHAEL: Like, uh, about three or four times.

KID: Every time that he hit you, did you yell?

MICHAEL: Yeah, at the time-yeah, I did-and at the time I was thinking that uh, she, uh, that she...she...she'll go in there if she hears me screaming.

DR. ALVAREZ-SANDERS: How does that make you feel, Michael, I mean, you're screaming, you're hoping in your head that you can scream loud enough so that your mom can hear you inside the kitchen. And she never comes. How many times do you have to scream for her to come inside the room? What kind of mother does that, Michael? What kind of mother hears her son in the other room screaming, when her husband is beating her child, with a board, what kind of mother stands in the kitchen and does nothing about it?

MICHAEL: My mother don't give a ***. She didn't give a ***...she knew that *** was going to happen, man. And she...she didn't do nothing, she didn't do *** to try to help me, man.

DR. ALVAREZ-SANDERS: That little boy needs his mom. Why is there nobody around for you, why do you have to feel lonely all the time, like there's nobody there for you?

MICHAEL: Nobody, man...nobody...I was by my ***ing self...I was by myself...I was by myself, nobody but my daddy...

DR. ALVAREZ-SANDERS (VO) : They don't want to engage in treatment. They want to do idle time in a structured setting, that's actually a easier thing for them to do. The harder thing for them to do is to take responsibility for the pain that they felt when they were a kid growing up, how it is that they became criminals and what they did with that pain when they victimized people.

MICHAEL: I'm just wishing that somebody would come...

DR. ALVAREZ-SANDERS: That little boy doesn't want to be alone...

MICHAEL: ...somebody will come, come get me...an, an angel or something will come, something, man, somebody to come, nobody...

LARRY REUE: Is there a particular person who....

DR. ALVAREZ-SANDERS: What did you need that angel for?

MICHAEL: To come get me.

DR. ALVAREZ-SANDERS: And do what for you, Michael?

MICHAEL: Help me.

DR. ALVAREZ-SANDERS: What did you need that angel to do for you?

MICHAEL: To love me.

NARRATION:
Texas calls this work resocialization. Intensive therapy forces troubled young offenders to deal with their anger and grief in a safe environment.

This unusual program costs an extra four thousand dollars per youth, but it's one of the nation's most effective. One year after release, those who took part were half as likely to be re-arrested. With teenagers who face years in adult prison, officials say it's a bargain.

DR. LINDA REYES: It costs $30,000 a year to incarcerate a juvenile. It costs at least $20,000 dollars a year to incarcerate somebody in the adult system. Well, the specialized treatment doesn't cost that much. It's about $4,000 a year. That's a good investment in terms of the chances that you can lessen the youth's likelihood of re-engaging in criminal behavior again when he's back, he's back in that community. Youth that go through the specialized treatment have lower recidivism rates than those that do not go through the specialized treatment programs.

NARRATION:
This unusual program lasts 16 weeks. In the next session, staff and youth play characters in traumatic events from Michael's life. The re-enactments are called psychodramas.

KID: You can't ***ing do nothing right, man.

KIDS: Gonna get a board. He's gonna beat your ass.

DR. ALVAREZ-SANDERS: I gotta get some cooking done.

KIDS: Hey, what the ***'s wrong with you, man? Huh? What the ***'s wrong with you, man? Hey, go get the board, man. Go get the board, man. What the ***'s wrong with you, man-go get the board.

KIDS: (mostly inaudible) ...look at your mom...how do you feel...let her know how you feel

DR. REYES: So when you re-create that theme for them, or re-create that kind of experience for them, almost unbidden, the emotions come back. And now, instead of screening out the emotions using his thoughts to say, you know, to deny that those feelings were ever there, he experiences the feeling in the moment.

KID: You ain't gonna have no more food fights...

MICHAEL: Stop that ***...

KIDS: Tell him what that *** doing to you, Mike, man...

MICHAEL: That *** ***ing me up...

KIDS: Tell him...

KID: Ain't gonna have no more food fights, Mike...

KIDS: Tell him...

DR. ALVAREZ-SANDERS: What happened here?

MICHAEL: You knew...you know...

DR. ALVAREZ-SANDERS: What happened?

MICHAEL: You know he hitting me, man...you know he hitting me...

DR. ALVAREZ-SANDERS: What happened here?

KIDS: Tell her, man...tell her what your daddy did...

MICHAEL: You know he hit me man...

DR. ALVAREZ-SANDERS: What are you all upset about? What are you all upset about?

KIDS: She knows what happened, man...

DR. ALVAREZ-SANDERS: What happened?

MICHAEL: I tried to scream, man, you came...you hear me, you don't even come...

DR. ALVAREZ-SANDERS: I didn't hear you scream...

MICHAEL: She heard me, man.

DR. ALVAREZ-SANDERS: I never heard you.

MICHAEL: You heard me, man

DR. ALVAREZ-SANDERS: I never heard you

MICHAEL: ***n, man, ***n, ***, she ***ing heard me

KIDS: Let it out...

DR. ALVAREZ-SANDERS: I never heard you, Michael...

MICHAEL: That *** hurt me, man, you heard me...

DR. ALVAREZ-SANDERS: I never heard you.

MICHAEL: You heard me, man, but you weren't there for me...

DR. ALVAREZ-SANDERS: I never heard you scream....

MICHAEL: I want...I wanted you to be there with me, and help me, man when I was...when I was getting beat. I wanted you...talk with me...and tell me...I wish I didn't have to...I-I-I shouldn't have to do...

DR. REYES (VO): It isn't about feeling sorry for them. It's about being able to help them change. If you can help them understand what was motivating their own behavior, you can help to intervene that pattern, and help prevent them from victimizing again in the future.

MICHAEL: I don't want...I ain't gonna hurt people like, like I was hurting, I ain't gonna hurt people because...'cuz I was always scared in my house, and I...I ain't gonna hurt people because man, I was scared, and because of all that ***

ROGER GRAEF: What Giddings does is crack the carapace, crack the mask that these kids have that stops them from seeing what they've done, and it allows them to begin to empathize with their victim. And the beginning of empathy is the beginning of understanding, and the beginning of understanding is the beginning of change.

DR. REYES: Unless we're going to keep them locked up forever, and I know there are some people who would advocate for that, but the reality is, the majority of them are gonna be back in our communities, and when they come back to our communities, if they have not changed, they're exactly the same person, or worse, or more angry than when they came in, they're still gonna be significant risk to the community

NARRATION:
To help young offenders prepare for life after they're released, Southwest Key teaches 13- to 17-year-olds discipline and responsibility while housing them in secure residential facilities. They learn the basic skills they'll need to become functioning members of the community.

DR. JUAN SANCHEZ: The philosophy of Southwest Key is that children belong at home where there are people there who care for them and support them and love them, and that children also belong in a community. A community where they can go to school to get an education, where they can get a job, where they can play, where they can have fun, where there's structure, where there's support and there's caring for them. The mission that we've set for ourselves in Southwest Key is that we want to keep kids out of institutions because we believe-we've always believed, and we're now ten years old, we believed that when we started, we believe it now-that institutions do not benefit kids. As a whole. And that really, institutions, in essence, are detrimental to kids and harmful for kids, and that once kids get into the juvenile justice system, it really begins....it becomes harder to turn kids around.

KIDS: thank you for giving us a wonderful day, let us all make the best...

NARRATION:
Southwest Key deals largely with serious offenders referred by the Texas Youth Commission. Most stay for six to nine months. The highly structured program includes daily education, counseling, and job training. As youths progress, they earn more privileges. Seventeen-year-old Jason Rodriguez will soon be released.

JASON: You know, when I was in the free I would have rather been getting high than going to school, you know. Smoking weed, drinking, you know, doing whatever. Peer pressure, friends, drugs, partying. My mom, my dad, my brothers, they kept trying to help me and help me, and help me trying to, "Come on, Jason, you can do better, you can do better." I just wouldn't listen to them.

DR. JUAN SANCHEZ: Understand-we get a kid after 14, 15 years of their life where they have lived disastrous lives, some of them. Very difficult lives. We get them for six months to nine months, maybe a year, some people will expect us to create miracles with these kids. And some of the things are miraculous, some of these kids make radical changes in their lives. But we can only be responsible I think for what happens and how many kids do graduate which we can show is a pretty significant number of kids.

REV. MARTIN McLEE: Come on, youngster.

NARRATION:
The Rev. Martin McLee runs the Southwest Key program in Dallas. He takes youngsters who have earned the privilege to an art exhibit to encourage them to develop pride in their ethnic heritage.

MARTIN McLEE: We try to take them twice a week to some kind of a cultural or recreational activity. Whether it's opera, ballet, or basketball, or an art exhibit. Yeah. It's important. Helps them to communicate, helps them to see the world as bigger than their own local communities.

JASON: I like, I never seen anything like that before. So I was like, I was surprised, you know, to see, you know, like, you know, my culture, you know, the African-American culture had that much talent, that they could do that. I was just real surprised to see some kind of work that they did.

DR. JUAN SANCHEZ: Our goal there is having these kids learn to discipline themselves, to monitor themselves, to be accountable to themselves and to the rest of the community and hopefully when they get out of our system, they've had an experience that will carry on for the rest of their lives.

JASON: My power word was maintain, maintain my positive attitude, and my level. I worked on it by, you know, just having a positive attitude, taking care of my business, not feeding into negative people. Just doing what I thought was right. My new power word is strive, strive for the better not for the worse.

JASON: I came in here a cold heart, you know? Like, I would look at people mean, you know? Then...I've learned to just listen, instead of thinking well, my way is the right way, and there's no other way, I've learned to hear other people's opinions. I've learned that me doing something wrong is gonna hurt somebody. I think about the pain that I caused to them, not just the pleasure I'll get out of it, or the fun, or the excitement or anything. I've learned that drugs is, isn't worth losing my family over. I've learned that gang, gangs aren't there for you. None of my friends wrote me. Basically I've learned, I've learned just to love life in the right way, not the wrong way.

KID: If you miss it they get it.

KEEMON: Jaguar Stadium.

ALL: Yeah!

JASON: You know I brought the Lord into my life, I've gotten real close with Him, I read the Bible, I pray, I go to church, you know...

REV. McLEE: I'm a minister in the United Methodist Church, and um, as, as a minister I'm very serious about, about sharing the love of Christ, about empowering people, about justice issues, so for me, it's a, it's a personal, um, faith-based compassion that I bring to work.

(Singing)

REV. McLEE (VO) : Jason got caught up in peer pressure, but his father instilled a good value system within him, and now that his father is gone, Jason is reaching back for that value system, and recapturing it and reclaiming it. I see Jason doing real well, he's got a keen mind, a strong sense of familial pride, and I see him caring for his mother, and giving support to his family.

(Singing)

JASON: I feel like comfortable there, you know, you know, even though, you know, say, you see the color, you know, but, you know, they they they don't even look at that, you know. Still, you know, I'm their brother, you know? And you know, and like, you know, it's kind of good to say, you know, um, you know, I'm a member of a gang now, you know, and I'm dedicated to that gang now, but something that's positive, you know, and it makes me feel better inside than, you know, I'm not out there, you know, breaking the law and stuff. And I can just say, "Yeah, you know, I'm a member and I'm dedicated to, you know, St. Luke's Church, you know."

DR. LINDA REYES: What has to happen I think is, that children have to be viewed as the responsibility of the community. They are not only the responsibility of their parents. And it would be nice if that could be the case, but the reality is many parents don't have the resources to raise those children in ways that they're going to be successful. When society and communities begin to see them again as our mutual responsibility, then we can join together in many different ways. It doesn't have to be government. It can be, it can be churches, it can be community organizations, it can be neighbors. It is about people in their own neighborhood saying, this is not acceptable, we're not going to continue to send our, all of our young people off to prison.

JUVENILE PRISONERS , (INCLUDING DANIEL) : One, ma'am...two ma'am...three, ma'am...four, ma'am...five, ma'am...six, ma'am...seven, ma'am...eight, ma'am...nine, ma'am...ten, ma'am...

DR. JUAN SANCHEZ (VO) : The kids we're locking up are a population of kids that this society has said we're giving up on this group of kids. I think that there are some things that can be done to change kids' lives around. I think we've got to constantly keep trying. There's something with most of these kids that you can tap that eventually will make a difference in their lives. And if we give up on kids, we're talking about having to spend many, many years just supporting these kids in an un-productive role, which is incarceration. I was with one of our Native American employees in Arizona recently. He said, "In the Native American community we believe that if you affect a person's life, you have an impact for the next seven generations." And I think that's what we need to think about is, we've got a choice here about what we do with these kids. Either we break the cycle of delinquency and crime and violence and oppression and drug addiction and all that, and get these kids to be educated and professionals and contributing members of society, and if we do that, their children will be that and their children's children will be that. Conversely, if we give up on these kids and they are in a life of crime and all we chose to do is lock these kids up, we're going to affect the next seven generations as well, 'cuz rest assured that their kids will be dropouts and violent offenders and, and juvenile delinquents, and their children's children will be juvenile delinquents and violent offenders and, and criminals and their children's children's children. So we have a decision to make in this society and in this country. How do we want to impact the next seven generations of kids?

CHARACTER UPDATES:

Steve is working with Gilda to tell the story of their mediation to inmates and to victims. Steve will be eligible for parole in 2004, after twenty years in prison.

Michael has returned home to live with his parents and now has a job. As a condition of his parole, he and his family underwent therapy together at Giddings.

Daniel will be released from the Texas Youth Commission in the fall of 1998. His mother was fined because two of his younger brothers missed school for a semester.