Tiffany Brown

Alex Bernal, Back on Track coordinator, leads a class at the Walnut Community Center. He helps at-risk teens get high school diplomas, find jobs and avoid gangs.

By Timothy Pratt

Sat, Mar 29, 2008 (2 a.m.)

The teenage boys in baggy shorts and girls in tight jeans had brought guns to school, stolen cars or broken into the homes of neighbors.

But they were having a tough time making this decision. A chorus of “Aw, man,” filled the room.

Alex Bernal, coordinator of the Back on Track program for former, current and would-be gangbangers, asked them to choose only one thing from the lists of “10 most important things in my life” they had spent 15 minutes working on. Throw all the rest away, Bernal said.

For the next few minutes, Vans and Nikes shuffled nervously over the classroom floor at the Walnut Recreation Center. Then the 14 boys and eight girls, all younger than 18, stood one by one, holding up scraps of paper on which they had written the most important thing of all.

Half of the would-be gangsters made the same choice: Mom.

Most of the rest chose Grandma, God or life.

Bernal’s follow-up didn’t miss a beat, as if he’d known what their answers would be. “So, do y’all act as if your mom is the most important thing in your life? Do you do what your grandma would want you to do?”

Heads moved from side to side.

So unfolded another of the weekly, hourlong classes Bernal has led over the past five years, trying to reach teens before they wind up in jail or shot on the street. He has his work cut out for him in light of Metro Police’s 2006 estimate of 7,800 gang members in Las Vegas and unincorporated Clark County.

The classes are part Sunday sermon, part therapy session, part motivational seminar. About half of the students currently enrolled come to the classes via court orders as part of their sentencing for crimes. Classes are complemented by a small staff of case managers who hold the teenagers’ hands through court dates, job interviews, high school equivalency exams. The program also hooks them up with activities ranging from basketball teams to computer classes.

In 2005 and 2006, Bernal and his colleagues reached 151 teens with Back on Track, helping 41 get their high school equivalency diplomas and 71 find jobs, according to yearly reports from the program. Five went to college, said Melvin Ennis, administrator of Back on Track and another program that gives the kids nighttime activities. Maybe one in five went back to crime, Ennis estimated.

“They develop tools to deal with issues in life,” he said of the classes. “It’s like you have practice, then there’s the game. This is like a practice for them going out there and making the right decisions.”

On a recent Thursday afternoon, Derrick, a sleepy-eyed, hair-braided 15-year-old in basketball shorts, explained why he had sat through more than 100 of Bernal’s classes to date.

Bernal asked a reporter to wait until the classroom had emptied to talk to Derrick. Then they rushed into a nearby office. The goal was for no one to see a black teen talking to a white man. They might think he was snitching, a charge that can get you beaten or killed in the courtroom of the streets.

But Derrick just wanted to talk about himself, and his choices. He said the classes “make me change how I see life ... that I could be somewhere, working hard ... instead of running the streets, going after easy money.”

Bernal explained that the teen had grown up with his share of chaos within blocks of the community center. His father was in gangs and no longer plays a role in his life. His older brother, transformed into a father figure, was once in gangs.

But his older brother got lifted from the ’hood by basketball. Attending college on a scholarship, he was back home last spring because of an injury. Old rivals drove by their house and shot his brother in the elbow and chest. He survived and is back in college, Derrick said.

The teen got scared. “That color stuff, it ain’t worth getting killed for,” he said, referring to the colors that identify the older, larger gangs.

Now his brother calls him on the phone weekly. “He tells me to stay out of trouble, that he loves me,” Derrick said.

Bernal said 80 percent of the kids he sees in the program have no fathers in their lives. The boys in his class have his cell phone number and call him with their troubles.

Derrick said it’s hard not having a father. “I see my mom sad sometimes. She worries about me. It puts pressure on me to do the right thing.”

Bernal said Derrick and others spend as much time as possible at the center, avoiding the streets.

Ennis said more attention is placed on putting kids behind bars than on helping them before they get that far into “the lifestyle.” He said it’s frustrating having to beg for money to support what are called gang intervention programs.

His two programs run on a $75,000 Bureau of Justice grant, more than twice the 2005-06 funding. But the increase doesn’t allow him to hire more caseworkers or people to keep better statistics on the program’s outcomes — which could help persuade funding sources to increase support. He, Bernal and one other person are the only full-time workers among 14 in the two programs, he said.

“It would be much better to spend money being proactive than reactive,” Ennis said about the order of things in the funding universe.

Meanwhile, kids like Derrick just try to make the right choices. Derrick goes to school, to Bernal’s class.

Then, “I just go and play ball and try to forget about it all.”