Juvenile delinquency (1955)

JUVENILE DELINQUENCY 37 In building- this prooram we found it necessary to first make a home for tlie boy; secondly, to jiet him back on his education, because so many of them were boys who had left school for different reasons, and many of them were habitual truants. We have a very fine academic program which is a credit. It is a credit even to a point that we belonp; to an athletic league which is a member of the California Athletic Board or wiiatever it is. The next thing we thought about was, if this was going to be a good home we would give them the academic subjects and next would be to teach them to use their hands profitably and we started out on just a little old ranch; at the present time we are constructing all of our buildings, which are made out of cement blocks which are also mads at the school itself. And to do this we couldn't get the traditional type of counselor. We had to get a counselor who was a craftsman, an artisan at the trade, a man who was sympathetic toward boys with problems, a man who could teach the boys to use their hands properly and a man who could use a lot of horsesense in his counsel. And it has paid dividends. Of course, we also have special trades be- sides the building trades, and then we have a very fine agricultural program. The next was religious guidance and we left that up to the Ministerial Association at Banning and the priest of the parish. The priest comes up on Saturday morning and conducts his service and on Sunday morning occasionally we have a pastor come from below. But the boys would much rather conduct their own services right at the school. And if you ever want a spiritual lift come up to the ranch on a Sunday morning right after a good ranch breakfast and see what the boys can do in conducting their own program. We had to give the boys many, many traditional niceties that makes for a good home; that is, on Easter Sunday, a basket of Easter eggs in front of their plate; on a boy's birthday a cake and everybody sings Happy Birtliday; on Mother's Day, cards to send home, or Father's Day cards, if it is that day, and a big Christmas. Those are not paid for by the county; they are paid for by the people of Kiverside County who have been very nice to us. Ancl I must say this, that the social contact we have with the public has been one of the big features toward rehabilitation at Twin Pines. We lean toward dramatics also. Everybody has a bit of dramatics in them. They like pageantry and so we go to pageantry. Speaking about rural living, on the day a new boy comes to Twin Pines Ranch he is met at the gate by an old ranch surrey pulled by two beautifully matched horses. And he is met at the gate where it says "Howdy Partner" with a warm handshake because we feel at Twin Pines that a warm handshake is the helping hand that the boy has been looking for. And then with the superintendent the boy rides down a tree-lined dusty road toward the ranch, and he is told what is expected of him; that there are no rules and regulations; that we live on tradition at Twin Pines: there are no fences, there are no locks, that there are no barred cells, and there are no guards. There is no punishment, there are no roUcalls, that we live as a person Mould live in a good home. Runaways are very, very few. Of course, if a boy leaves the ranch he understands he never comes back. But the boy understands all of this by the time he reaches the office where he is registered. And he