Tired of living wrong, teen breaks cycle

SALT RIVER COMMUNITY - After another stint in juvenile lockup inside the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community Department of Corrections, Joshua Azule got to thinking.

Here he was at 17, charged with being a minor in possession of alcohol and being in possession of drug paraphernalia.

It was two weeks after his daughter was born, and he'd been picked up on a probation violation that cost him 15 days in juvenile correction.

"I told myself, 'It's my last time in there,' and it was," said Azule, now 18. "The fact I left my girlfriend at home with two kids while I was in jail, really got to me. I was missing all the little moments you don't want to miss."

Azule eventually broke his cycle of incarceration with help of programs offered by the Salt River Community's education and behavior health departments and the Red Mountain Branch of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Scottsdale.

"It all goes back to 2002," said Brian Yazzie, director of Native American Services with the club. "One of the things that was recognizable was that the Community had a high rate of juvenile delinquents."

At the time, the club shared time and space with other corrections programs at the community's decades-old detention facility. Limitations on time meant much of what was learned through jail programs failed to stick once kids were released from jail.

"In the old facility, it was small and outdated. We were never able to connect with the kids," Yazzie said. "We had to step back and reevaluate this."

The club and education programs had limited success, and a lack of funding nearly caused both groups to cease jail programs, Yazzie said.

When the Boys and Girls Clubs set up in Salt River's new 48-bed juvenile detention center in February, community officials made sure the organization got a full-sized classroom, complete with schoolbooks, computers and a recreation room, said James Short, site supervisor at the Department of Corrections for the Boys and Girls Clubs.

At the old facility where Short was a detention officer, about 20 juveniles would be housed at the center.

"We were pretty steady over there," he said. "Since we opened up the program in (the new facility), we haven't gone over double digits. My goal is to have zero."

A year ago, about 16 juveniles were incarcerated. On Thursday there were six. Before, the average jail stay was 1 1/2 years. Today it's about 30 days.

While incarcerated, youths are exposed to a variety of programs, including life skills where, among other things, kids can learn to manage their money, said Navin Wood, Health and Life Skills coordinator for the local Boys and Girls Clubs.

"They seem to be more open to changes, picking careers and schooling," said Wood, who was raised on the Salt River Community.

Many teens are unprepared when they receive a large payment from the Salt River Community on their 18th birthday, Wood said. Suddenly faced with a $10,000 check, many frivolously spend the money or party, instead of storing it away or signing up for college courses.

"There are those who have gone from gang-banging to bringing their life in order," he said. "They slowly come around."

The Salt River Community is the only Indian reservation in the country to incorporate a Boys and Girls Clubs into its jail, President Diane Enos said last summer.

"You find that when people come into the jail system, a lot of time they don't have their education," Enos said. "This enables us to make all efforts to rehabilitate them . . . rather than putting them in the closet and locking them up."

Having the Boys and Girls Clubs inside the jail helps juveniles "understand they are still a part of the community . . . that they still have the opportunity to explore a lot of options. That's valuable."

That holds true for Azule, who has applied for courses at ITT Tech.

"I've had a lot of things to motivate me to graduate," he said. "I knew I was capable of going back to school."

"The fact I left my girlfriend at home with two kids while I was in jail, really got to me," said Joshua Azule, 18, shooting some pool at the Boys and Girls Club on the Salt River Indian Community.