His shaven head and tattoos convey a hardcore attitude, but as soon as Leroy begins to talk about his family, his daughters and his new life, the tough exterior melts away. He spent seven months locked up last year in Kern County’s Crossroads program. The treatment and detention facility for juveniles is the step before prison.

“I just started stressing and I didn’t even know what to do. I never thought I’d be in that situation,” Leroy said. “I just had to deal with it and just do my time.”

Now 18, he has changed his life but many of the people he knows are still making bad choices, like his older brother, who has been in prison.

“He tells me not to follow in his footsteps,” Leroy said. He also has former friends who are taking the wrong path.

“There’s one that is in jail right now. They got him for drugs,” Leroy said.

When Leroy had weekly visitations with his family he said that he would get excited and just wish he was home. He also participated in a teen dad program at Crossroads.

Leroy holds a steady job and is trying to get into school. He asked that his full name not be used in this story since he is trying to turn his life around.

“(Crossroads) made me get my head on my shoulders,” he said. “I’m going the right route. And I’m choosing my friends, too.”

Leroy checks in with his probation supervisor and pays restitution to the Crossroads program once a month.

In June, the Crossroads program’s new facility was dedicated. Chief Probation Officer Larry Rhoades was the driving force in opening the new facility near Lerdo. It is named after him.

The new treatment center is similar in operation to the one on Ridge Road in East Bakersfield, but is built more like a high school campus, rather than a detention facility, and will serve 40 more minors. The living areas are separated into six pods with 20 single cells to a pod. The new Crossroads also has its own kitchen, whereas the program used to use the juvenile hall cafeteria.

Most of the rooms are single per-son cells with a thin mattress and a stainless steel sink and toilet. At the old facility, detained minors were required to knock loudly on their cell doors until a group counselor was available to accompany them to the restroom.

“This is a secure detention facility,” Rhoades said of Crossroads.

The minors, usually age 15-17, are not allowed off the site, which is surrounded by barbed wire and is constantly monitored by group counselors and security personnel. There are also groups. “It hurt me just by being in a cell by myself and they were telling me what to do,” Leroy said of the isolation.

“We’re inmate supervisors,” Crossroads group counselor Terry Ashley said. “Supervision is the main focus of our job.”

Although Crossroads is secure, the facility does have violence issues.

“All facilities have to deal with gang issues,” Ashley said. “We do have fights and most of our fights are gang related.”

However, Crossroads High School Principal Wesley Neal said that the school is probably the safest is Kern County.

In the wake of California Youth Authority (CYA) accusations of beatings, gladiator style gang fights, and other mistreatment, local programs, like Crossroads and Camp Erwin Owen are working. With the boot camp style and community focused curriculum, recidivism rates of the Crossroads program are much lower compared to CYA statistics. 91 percent of CYA youths are rearrested within three years of release from CYA, according to Superior Court Judge Richard Oberholzer. At Crossroads it is approximated that 25 percent will be rearrested, according to group counselor Terry Ashley.

However, the success of locally operated juvenile delinquency programs is being threatened due to federal budget issues. Camp Erwin Owen, a less secure camp in Kernville, is in danger of being partly or wholly shut down due to the transfer of $6.2 million in federal funds that come through the state, according to Craig York, county administrative services officer.

“They’re equally effective and they’re equally needed,” Rhoades said of Camp Owen and Crossroads.

Because a $12 million grant was already given to open the Crossroads treatment facility, if it is not opened, the county will have to repay all the costs of building to the state, which is much more expensive than the funding needed to open the facility.

Rhoades is dismayed with the possible loss of funds.

If juvenile treatment facilities are downsized locally, Kern County will be forced to send more minors to CYA, where it costs three times as much per youth as it does to house delinquents locally.

“Frankly I think we do a better job than the state,” Rhoades said, comparing Crossroads to CYA. “When you have a local program, you keep the kids in the community.”

Assistant Director of the Crossroads Facility Gail Villalovos said that sending youths to CYA would be exposing them to a far more criminal element.

“I think Crossroads is much more effective than the youth authority. The CYA has serious problems,” said Superior Court Judge Skip Staley, who runs the juvenile delinquency court.

Leroy credited Crossroads for his new outlook on life.

“Hold yourself back and go the right way,” Leroy advised teens. “It’s on them what they want to do with their lives.”