Out of the Line of Fire

By Jill Smolowe

Trina Leas, 13, knows the rap against summer camp. "Fool, forget that," friends tell her. "That's stupid." They would rather have her hang out with them on the streets of Peoria, Illinois. But Trina's experience last summer at Peoria's Camp Neighborhood House opened up another side to her life. She hiked and made candles and found time to reflect on a slain classmate. In a letter she wrote, "The shot went off and hit DeWayne in the side and he fell to the ground and his guts were hanging out and he was trying to put them back in with his hands and he went to the hospital and died." This summer Trina has become a junior counselor. "Maybe I can reach out to some young kids," she says. "Camp gets you involved with good things, not bad."

Simple as it sounds, that is precisely the idea. With the intensity of a disaster-relief operation, the cities and towns of America have mobilized to ensure that the summer of '94 is filled with lively diversions instead of deadly teenage violence. Community leaders and parents have launched a record number of programs to steer youths away from gunfire and toward productive activity: work, play and education. And to put teeth into the campaign, dozens of towns have imposed strict curfews.

( Denver, for one, is determined to head off a reprise of last year, when a string of vicious youth crimes unhinged the city's calm. The upshot is an activities budget of $6 million, twice the amount allotted a year ago. Recreation programs -- from swimming and camping to video production -- have grown from 900 last year to 1,300 this summer.

Among the other efforts:

Learning to Change. Sometimes young people have been so deprived of positive activities that they need coaching when they are about to enter unfamiliar work environments. In Las Vegas, Jocelyn Oats, youth coordinator at the Nevada Partners program, starts sessions by having everyone fold a napkin. "When they are done, they see that everyone folds them differently," she says. "I make them do this so they will understand that their employer may want them to do things differently than they are used to."

Working Off Aggression. In Atlanta, which has been promoting jobs for teens from low-income families through the city's Private Industry Council for the past 11 years, there is no lack of interest -- only a lack of jobs. This year 3,500 youths applied for 1,400 positions. Dietrice Bigby, 20, took advantage of the program two years ago by going to work for IBM as an assistant secretary. Today she is an IBM customer-service coordinator and hopes to be promoted to customer engineer this year.

A Mandate for Recreation. Luring youths into parks to try their hand at tennis or their feet at rock climbing isn't just a pitch for frivolous fun. A report by the San Francisco-based Trust for Public Land documents a drop in crime in neighborhoods that provide adequate parks and recreation activities for youths. Unfortunately, the study notes, the best parks tend to be clumped in the wealthiest neighborhoods. In Chicago the impressive lakefront has 41 acres of parkland for every 1,000 residents; on the less affluent West Side there is only half an acre per 1,000 people. In Congress, Minnesota Democrat Bruce Vento is trying to rectify such inequities by co-sponsoring legislation to provide more money for parks and programs. "Recreation," he points out, "is less expensive than incarceration."

Besides the Carrots, a Stick. Not all the efforts are warm and cuddly. New Orleans has imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew for youths 16 and younger. In the first week the effort netted 200 violators. Curfews are denounced by civil libertarians, but parents and judges find merit in the approach. Early in June a judge in Orlando, Florida, rejected an effort by the American Civil Liberties Union to block temporarily a midnight-to-6 a.m. curfew that restricted minors from entering a 12-square-block downtown area.

But will these various efforts pay off? Bob Sieks, executive director of the association that sponsors Trina Leas' summer camp, is optimistic. "People are awake again," he says. "They're nonapathetic." On the other hand, Trina's mother Debbie, while counting on her daughter's safety, doesn't expect any miracles. "I told my kids, 'You just watch. There's going to be so many kids killed here this summer.'

The shooting is well under way. In Miami last week, a group of teenage boys attacked a motorist who had stopped to help an 11-year-old girl he had hit with his car. Although the girl was only slightly injured, the driver was beaten, robbed and fatally shot. Police arrested a 16-year-old boy and charged him with murder and robbery. Said a detective: "People made another senseless killing in our town. It is crazy."

With reporting by Julie Grace/Chicago, Janet I-Chin Tu/Washington, Bonnie Rochman/Atlanta and Richard Woodbury/Denver