Feb 27, 2008 8:03 pm US/Pacific
Judge's Program Puts Kids Back on Track
Jefferson Award Winner: Ina Gyemant
(CBS 5)
For twenty years, Judge Ina Gyemant sat on the bench in San Francisco Superior Court. But it was her six years in criminal court that inspired her to make a change.
"I found myself sentencing eighteen and nineteen year olds to state prison," she explains. "And it was after maybe three or four violations of probation, when they had drug offenses, and I started to ask them, 'Have you ever had a job? Have you ever interviewed for a job?' And they would say, 'No.'"
By using the authority of the court, Ina got more and more young defendants to produce proof they'd looked for -- and gotten - jobs. It was the first step to a life on the right side of the law.
She says, "So that really gave me the idea -- when I was assigned to juvenile court, that ok, now these are the young people that are four years younger and so we really could turn them off of the path of going to state prison or being shot and being killed on the street."
So Ina started an innovative program, bringing together the DA's office, Public Defender's Office, Probation Office, and the Department of Health. She called it Youth Treatment and Education Court or YTEC. It started as an after-school program.
"The idea was to get them into drug treatment and also to monitor their education," Ina says.
Two years ago, YTEC expanded its partnership with the San Francisco school district to create one of the first schools in the country that integrates drug treatment and counseling with an academic curriculum.
"If you do it separately, it doesn't seem to sink in the same as when you're doing it while they're doing their academics," says Ina.
The approach worked for students Eric and Keneshia.
"It got me into school because I wasn't going to school a lot. It helped me graduate off probation, it helped to build a better relationship with my mom and my family," says Keneshia.
Both have graduated from the program and gone onto college and jobs. And both have high regard for Judge Ina.
Eric says, "She's real nice. I mean, there was a lot of times where I should have went somewhere else instead of just coming back here and I mean she stuck with me."
"When she was our judge, she was always respectful but she was strict at the same time," Keneshia adds.
Ina says, "The program has been enormously successful - in terms of rates of kids coming back and re-offending, in terms of the high school graduation, in terms of college attendance, and jobs."
Ina has retired from the bench and now serves as president of the nonprofit that works to fund YTEC. She still finds time to visit the classrooms.
"If you have this person's attention, and you give them your undivided attention and say, If you do this, there are going to be rewards. If you don't do this, there are going to be consequences, and then you follow through, they will perform," she says confidently.
So for building a network to keep kids on track and out of the criminal justice system, this week's Jefferson Award in the Bay Area goes to Ina Gyemant.
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