Panel Urges Youth Camp for Offenders : Juvenile Hall: Conference officials say the public’s help is needed to steer other teen-agers away from crime.

Ventura County’s juvenile justice system is overflowing with youthful offenders and needs community help to steer other teen-agers away from crime, officials at a conference said Saturday.

More than 100 jailed youths are regularly crowded into Juvenile Hall, which was designed to house 84, said Chris Weidenheimer, supervisor of the juvenile intake unit of the county’s correctional services department. She said the overcrowding means that inmates who are supposed to have single rooms must instead share accommodations.

“We don’t have the space for them,” said Linda Groberg, an attorney who supervises the juvenile unit in the district attorney’s office.

Panelists called for the county to create a youth camp to house additional offenders. And, quoting an African proverb that says it takes a whole village to raise a child, they called for additional public participation to prevent children from ever reaching Juvenile Hall.

“Prevention is the job of the village--the job of the families, the extended families, the community resources, the Boys & Girls Clubs, the Girl Scouts,” Weidenheimer said.

Groberg said the public can also help prosecutors with juvenile court cases.

“There are too many members of the community who do not want to get involved, who do not want to report crimes, who do not want to serve as witnesses,” Groberg said.

About 50 people attended the Ventura City Hall event, which was sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Ventura County.

Officials said they are already trying to stop juvenile crime and to prevent young people from turning to crime.

Assistant Oxnard Police Chief Tom Cady said his officers teach anti-drug classes in schools and are stationed at junior high schools to prevent crime. And Weidenheimer said her office closes many cases after meeting with youthful offenders and their parents and obtaining an agreement from youths to do community service and pay restitution.

But problems persist despite these efforts, officials said.

Last week, Weidenheimer said, a juvenile walked out her office door and “immediately ran away from home and committed another crime that same day.”

Weidenheimer said her office uses various signals, including clothing, to decide whether to turn cases over to the district attorney.

“When they come into the office dressed in their gang clothing with their marijuana hats on, we know there is a problem,” Weidenheimer said.

Dale Strayhorn, principal of the schools that serve youths jailed in Ventura County, said, “If you talk to most of our students they don’t have any values. They don’t have any standards. They don’t know how to multiply. They don’t know how to do long division.”

Groberg said she regularly sees children who have not been to school in three years. When she asks them what they will do with their lives, they respond with a blank stare, she said.

That, said panelist and county Supervisor Susan Lacey, is a shame.

“It’s important to save the kid if you can,” she said. “We should have children looking under rocks and playing with wiggly things and asking hard questions of their parents.”

The event was part of a study of the juvenile justice system begun in September by the League of Woman Voters. The group plans to issue a report in June recommending ways to improve the system.