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Building Confidence and Self-Esteem

Confidence-building programs like the one under way at Skyline Ranch have been shown to have a direct impact on crime reduction.

In Fort Myers, Florida, police have documented a 28% drop in juvenile arrests since 1990, when the city began STARS-Success Through Academics and Recreational Support-for young adolescents.²⁷ To support STARS, Fort Myers built a new recreation center in the heart of a low-income community. According to Mayor Wilbur Smith, the location was controversial because many people expected the center to be plagued by crime. It has not turned out that way. The program won an award from the U.S. Conference of Mayors as the outstanding crime reduction program of 1992.

In 1991, 75% of the children enrolled in STARS were making less than a C average in school. Now 80% of the 1,500 children enrolled have brought their grades up to a C average or better. "As the mayor of a city that totally committed itself to using recreation and academic support as the vehicle for combating violent juvenile crime, I can tell you that it works," Smith says. "In my judgment it is the best, most cost-effective, and most responsible position to take in the very complex search for solutions to juvenile crime."

Newark, New Jersey, is also beginning to see results from an aggressively expanded recreation program. The abandoned John F. Kennedy Recreation Center had been a magnet for vandalism and other crimes until the city invested $1.2 million in renovation. Now the center is used by 5,000 young people every month, and crime in the area has decreased.²⁸ Hundreds of inner-city children are learning to ice skate, and midnight basketball is available in the summer, when criminal activity usually escalates.

Newark's tennis program, begun by the late champion Arthur Ashe, requires that kids keep up good grades to participate. Peer counseling is combined with tennis lessons several times a week in order to "foster independent thinking, self-discipline, good manners, and a healthy lifelong activity." ²⁹ So far, more than 6,000 teenagers have participated, and, according to Newark's program director, Charles Hardman, many of the tennis players have substantially improved their grades in school.³⁰ When Ashe set up the Safe Passage Foundation that sponsors the tennis program in Newark and another one in Albany, New York, he was aware that when young people are frustrated, they often feel they have precious little to lose. In his autobiography, Days of Grace, Ashe wrote that he wanted to help youth make the transition to adulthood "without a crippling loss of faith in society and themselves. Safe Passage can hardly solve the problems of poverty, racism, juvenile delinquency, cynicism, sexual promiscuity, crime, and drug addiction. But we have an obligation to try to do something to counter this social and spiritual plague. Too many people have simply given up." ³¹

In Tampa, Florida, simply establishing the Boys & Girls Club at Rembrandt Homes, a public housing complex, helped reduce crime. Tampa Housing Authority director Audley Evans says that in the two years since the club opened, "we have seen a significant decrease in recidivism, drug trafficking, and drug activity." ³² According to a National Park Service report, similar reductions in drug use have occurred at other public housing projects after recreation areas were renovated.³³

In Hart County, Georgia, Project HYDRA-Hart Youth Development Resource Association-puts young first offenders into a recreation and mentor program as part of an informal probation. In HYDRA's first year of operation, juvenile complaint calls fell by 14% and incarcerations by 25%.³⁴ In Richmond, Virginia, Project READY-Recreation and Educational Activities Designed for Youth-hires at-risk youth to work on park and road beautification, providing young people with jobs and recreation while they help maintain green spaces.³⁵

The U.S. departments of Interior and Justice are using the same concept in a Youth Environmental Service (YES) program that began in 1994: employing delinquent and at-risk teens to do environmental conservation work on federal lands. Three pilot programs are under way. In Utah, moderate offenders will be bussed from Salt Lake City to work on Bureau of Land Management property, where they will spend as long as 30 days in wilderness areas. At the Big Cypress National Preserve and Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge in Florida, serious and violent juvenile offenders will live and work near conservation areas, and in Washington, D.C., juvenile offenders will help the National Park Service maintain the national parks and monuments within the city.³⁶

Law enforcement officials who have seen the beginnings of success from these kinds of programs are adding their voices to those calling for more resources for parks and recreation. Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block says young people are less attracted to gangs when they have other alternatives.³⁷ Los Angeles Police Chief Willie Williams specifies that the city needs more "safe parks and healthy recreation opportunities to keep our kids off the streets and out of gangs." ³⁸ Samuel Saxon, director of the Department of Corrections in Prince George's County, Maryland, sees the whole process as key to the nation's future. "The difference between a safe country and a country that is going down the tubes is the degree that we pay attention to the young people," he says.³⁹

Columbus, Ohio, police officer Sergeant Frank Weirick, who represents the National Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), says the fact that recreation programs can prevent youth from becoming youthful offenders is nothing new to police.⁴⁰ The FOP began running Police Athletic Leagues (PALs) for teenagers in the 1930s and now operates 23 PALs. There is a hitch, though, in making youth programs widely available. As Weirick puts it, "the hunt for necessary funds is a dog fight."