A successful program to aid at-risk juveniles is caught in the budget vise

WHEN THE CITY'S Department of Human Services cut $150,000 from the "Don't Fall Down in the Hood" rescue program for first-time juvenile offenders, it might as well have cut a piece out of Archye Leacock's heart.

Despite his blindness since childhood, Leacock's vision of what it takes to save the endangered lives of young black and Hispanic males in Philadelphia's most violent neighborhoods has worked miracles for more than a decade.

Today, Leacock's program is a shadow of what it was only a year ago - his small staff diminished by three case managers who visited homes and schools to keep their at-risk juveniles from straying, his dozen juvenile offenders down from the 40-50 who filled Don't Fall Down's classrooms at Temple University before the budget was almost halved.

While DHS maintained the budget for youths who come to Don't Fall Down after being sent to a juvenile facility by the courts, it eliminated the preventive program for juveniles who were sent to Don't Fall Down to keep them from committing crimes that would get them killed or jailed in the future.

The funding cut makes no sense to Leacock in a city where, according to police, 7,906 juveniles were arrested last year, including 329 for firearm possession, 1,447 for drugs, 584 for aggravated assault, 1,094 for simple assault and 18 for murder.

"We are the only program in the city working with at-risk youth who have been charged with gun offenses," Leacock said. "DHS cut all of our funds on the prevention side for kids who have been charged and not found guilty.

"But a kid with a gun can get off because a witness doesn't show up and the case is dropped, or because he has a clever lawyer," Leacock said. "That kid could think, 'I can keep on doing what I'm doing and get away with it.'

"We see so many of those kids back in the criminal-justice system within a year."

Leacock's voice betrayed his frustration with DHS.

"We know kids have guns," he said. "We know kids with guns commit crimes. But DHS is not willing to fund a program that steps in before a crime is committed, trying to prevent that kid from committing it. That doesn't make sense to me."

Nor does it make sense to Leacock's program director, Wesley Jones, who pleaded guilty to gun possession in 1999 when he was a 17-year-old senior at George Washington High School, went through months of Don't Fall Down in the Hood life skills and job-skills training, and believes the program saved his life.