Saving Troubled Teens Through 'Safe Schools'

Aug. 4, 2005 -- -- At Arizona's Department of Juvenile Corrections, there are pat downs, cell doors and razor wire.

The arrivals come in handcuffs, are photographed and go through a 21-day evaluation to determine their issues -- like anger, sex crimes, mental health or substance abuse.

But the 300 boys at the Adobe Mountain School, and the 80 girls across the yard at the Black Canyon School, aren't exactly in prison.

Arizona's juvenile corrections system calls these facilities "safe schools" -- they are part prison, part school. Juveniles are sent there by a juvenile judge in a civil court. And in the "safe schools," there is opportunity -- even hope.

"If we can train them to do different to live differently then they'll be productive citizens and that's our goal. We want to obviously protect the public but we want to rehabilitate," Suzanne LaRue, Black Canyon's superintendent, told "Primetime" co-anchor Chris Cuomo.

The safe schools represent the last chance for many of the kids in these facilities. If the kids commit another offense, they will likely have to enter the prison system.

"Primetime" recently spent nearly six months following several kids as they wound their way in and out of this system. Because they are juveniles, their last names have been withheld.

One of the eternal questions for staff at the "safe schools" is: "Can a kid be fixed?" One of the unique ways they try to answer in the affirmative is through teaching methods.

For example, they use cars to teach math to teenage boys. "They're street smart. So we don't want to come in and bring them Jane/Sally/Dick type curriculum," said one teacher. "We have to trigger their interest."

They also pay special attention to their students' self-esteem. Many of the kids have grown up being embarrassed by learning disabilities and poor performance at school.

Conrad, a boy who has been banned from Arizona's mainstream public schools, succinctly summarized his positive feelings about his teachers: "They don't treat me like I'm crap," he said.