R5 Program Posts Promising Initial Results

Editor's Note: This is part of a series of stories about local youth-centered programs in Watsonville that work to give kids and young adults skills to succeed. Patch is focusing on these positive efforts in the wake of gang violence that claimed the life of a Watsonville High freshman and injured a second teenage boy earlier this month.

Just over a year after receiving a $750,000 federal grant to reduce repeat criminal offenses and improve community safety, the R5 program has reached its full caseload and its first participants back into the local community.

“As of this week we are at our projected capacity and we plan to actually go a little bit beyond that,” said Andrew Davis, program director and senior department administrative analyst with the Santa Cruz County Probation Department. “We have 30 participants per year and it’s a two-year program so we’ll get up to 60 people.”

The R5 program, which stands for Recidivism Reduction Through Research-Based Rehabilitation and Reentry, is a multidisciplinary program—nine local government agencies and non-profits  participate—targeting 18 to 25 year old repeat criminal offenders with a history of violence.

“When we broke out recidivism, a return to crime, we saw some really clear patterns. One was that the rate for recidivism for young offenders was a lot higher; two to three times higher than older adult populations and their rate of violence was also two to three times higher,” said Davis. “We’re trying to serve repeat offenders who are causing real harm in the community.

“They theory is this: if we can make even a modest improvement with this population it’s going to have an enormous payoff in terms of both system capacity and community safety. That’s the bottom line.”

For R5 to meet its goal, it assesses why participants are likely to continue to commit crimes and then tries to address those issues. For many, steady employment is key. R5 draws on the experience of local non-profits programs such as the Community Restoration Project to help members find jobs.

“Giving people the chance to work after they’ve got a criminal record is a big deal,” said Susan Rousculp, job developer with the Community Action Board. “If someone who’s committed a crime can’t find employment when they’ve turned their life around the chances of them going back and doing it again are just more likely.”

R5 and the do not leave the job hunt to chance, preparing program members to find employment through a series of workshops led by case manager Elias Gonzales. The workshops cover everything from job hunting to writing a cover letter and drawing out each individual’s job skills.

“They all have skills but a lot them don’t have skills they’ve used in a professional environment. So what I try to do is highlight them,” said Gonzales.

Initial results are still too small to draw definitive conclusions on R5’s effectiveness but quantitatively and anecdotally, it looks to be making a real difference. According to Davis, as of November, of the 16 participants now back in the community only two had been arrested for new crimes and another two returned to custody for a violating their probation conditions. That's a 75 percent success rate.

“We can definitely point to a number of these guys and they would definitely be back in; both from our estimate and the things they will tell us,” said Davis.

Rousculp, the job placement advisor, has seen what to this point look to be real and dramatic turnarounds already. One man, a young single father, now working at Wonderfully Raw Gourmet Delights, stands out to her.

“He’s still getting his feet back on the ground. But I’ve watched this guy do this amazing transformation from a tough guy to a person who’s really happy in his life. He’s a single dad. He’s working to support his son. He’s getting his gang tattoos removed and he’s putting in a full day’s work,” said Rousculp, who added, “I’ve taken his resume out of my file because he’s gainfully employed.”

Here's another story about a Watsonville youth program, Jovenes Saños.