Girl Scouts Guiding Troubled Teens
By Bonnie L. Cook, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
Two boxes of Girl Scout cookies vanished faster than burgers at-a picnic, as the five girls who ate them laughed their way through a drama exercise.
I can't act," said Laura, 15, then overcame shyness and did, to much applause.
If not for the dark? blue prison pants, it would be hard to tell that these ponytailed teens were juvenile offenders, or that this was anything more than an ordinary Girl Scout meeting.
But behind the secure walls of Montgomery County Youth Center in Norristown, the Girl Scouts have extended a hand to teens in trouble.
In a special program called Girl Scouting in Detention Centers, imprisoned girls meet weekly for crafts and role-playing. About 270 participated here last year.
At the meetings the girls, whose last names are withheld because they are minors, talk about their hopes and dreams and the reasons they got into trouble in the first place.
Nicole, 16, said she was being detained for missing court after stealing a can of whipped cream. Janda, 17, said she had violated curfew, then spat on police, triggering a resisting-arrest charge.
Laura said she hit her mom during one of their frequent fist-fights, then ran from police. All three were looking to turn their lives around.
No one knows whether participation in Girl Scouts will help keep juvenile offenders such as these on the right track. But the federal government believes it's worth a hefty infusion of public money.
Since 2000, $11 million has been funneled to Girl Scout councils nationwide to reach at-risk girls in unconventional settings like prisons and shelters. Currently, there are 70 Girl Scout programs in youth prisons.
The effort dovetails with a 1996 study by the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention that showed arrest rates among girls rising at far greater rates than among boys 23 percent from 1989 to 1993, compared with 11 percent for boys.
Where troubled girls are, scouting should follow, the thinking goes, because scouting can offer girls positive role models and tools for building self-esteem.
"We want to help that girl find her voice and learn that she is an important member of society, and has something important to give," said Janet E. Garretson, executive director of Girl Scouts of Freedom Valley, a council based in Valley Forge.
Freedom Valley and the Girl Scouts of Camden County oversee the prison-based Girl Scout troops in the Philadelphia region.
Last year, the two groups received a total of $42,000 in federal money. This year, $400,000 has been earmarked for 17 scout councils to enhance prison programs, but it is not clear yet how much the two local councils will get.
The troops, for girls between 11 and 17 years old, meet in a half-dozen juvenile correctional facilities in Bucks, Camden, Chester, and Montgomery Counties. The councils send a paid leader with planned activity and supplies to meetings such as those on Jan. 5 and 12.
"They do things germane to any Girl Scout troop," said Maureen Raquet, director of the Montgomery County Youth Center. "They don't sell cookies, that's the only thing they can't do."
During one troop meeting at the Youth Center in Norristown, leader Jocabed Ortiz, a 19-yearold Ursinus College student, showed the girls how to make decoupage boxes using cut paper and paste.
The girls, still stressed from recent incarceration, thumbed quietly through magazines for words and images that reflected their personalities.
Nicole chose the words "smile" and "unforgettable" as part of her box which she said was for a girlfriend in jail. Laura chose "in love," along with the picture of a heart. "It's for my boyfriend," she said. "We're going to get married. It's going to happen when I'm 18."
Janda, more animated than the others, wanted to talk about life at home. "Nobody likes me in my town for some reason," she said, which provoked lively discussion.
Though attendance at troop meetings is required, the girls appeared to enjoy them. Laura said she might even keep up with scouting after her release.
"It depends on what happens," she said. "This might be the thing that keeps me out of trouble."
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