Free No Matter How Loud I Shout by Edward Humes Page B

because they are so easily straightened out. Kids end up with Sharon Stegall looking over their shoulder because, if they don’t shape up, their next stop could easily be the state penitentiary.
    Most juvenile POs in Los Angeles have enormous caseloads, far too many kids to supervise closely. 3 Sharon, however, is on a special gang detail. Her load is limited to fifty kids, which in contemporary Los Angeles is considered intensive supervision. (Standards change as resources dwindle: In the sixties, many probation officers worked with fewer than twenty kids; thirty-five offenders, even minor ones, were considered the maximum number that could be supervised effectively by any one person.) Sharon and her colleagues on the Metro Gang Unit get the toughest, most hardened kids to supervise, the ones who have committed violent crimes or who have lengthy records and have resisted obeying regular probation officers in the past. Basically, she deals with the Sixteen Percenters—the 16 percent of juvenile delinquents in LA who are hard-core repeat offenders. All of Sharon’s kids have been locked up in camp or CYA before coming to her. Few of them faced any meaningful consequences or supervision early on when it might have mattered. Now, though, these hard cases get the most intensive attention from the system available at this late stage in their criminal careers—when they are least likely to benefit from it. If five out of her fifty kids make it on probation in any given year, she considers it a rousing success.
    â€œMaking it” is defined as not disappearing, dying, or getting arrested for twelve months. 4
    â€œI don’t know, Carla,” Sharon says during that first meeting after Carla’s release from camp. The probation officer has already had a long talk with Carla’s school counselor, mother, and older sister. “I hear you are pretty slick.”
    â€œNo, really, Ms. Stegall. I know now that I have to quit the life. I was just being a follower. Now I know my so-called friends don’t really careabout me. I just want to do good in school so I can go to law school and be a lawyer. I want to help people.” Carla flashes that winning smile of hers. “And I like to argue. I’m good at it.”
    â€œWe’ll see,” Sharon says, her voice completely neutral. “Now I’m going to go over your conditions of probation with you, and you’d better listen up, because if you cross the line on any of them, I will hook you up.” Sharon reaches into her purse and pulls out a set of stainless-steel handcuffs, jingling them at Carla. “Now, you will obey all laws. You will submit to being searched by any peace officer or probation officer with or without a warrant. You will not consume alcoholic beverages or any controlled substance. You will not associate with any gang members, wear gang clothing, or use any gang signs or gestures. . . .” The list goes on a good five minutes. There are twenty-four separate conditions.
    When the litany of dos and don’ts is completed and Carla walks from the office, promising to be good, Sharon turns and says to a colleague, “I give that girl a week before she blows it.”
    It turns out that Sharon underestimated Carla.
    That same night finds Carla on a corner with her Tepa-13 friends, exchanging high fives and passing around a little homegrown, catching up and kicking back. Then they show their long-absent home girl what they have been up to while she was at Camp Resnick. One of her homeboys lifts up his shirt and says, “Check this out.”
    His abdomen bears an enormous and still freshly scabbed tattoo, with “Tepa” spelled in six-inch-high Old English letters emblazoned across his belly like a billboard. Carla looks closely at the needlework, admiring the artistry—and the nerve it took to get it. She knew that it had to have hurt like hell, and every guy in the gang had one just