Turning Teens Around

By Chad Petri Reporter

Some teenage boys that go through the juvenile justice system in Mobile may end up at the Martin Youth Leadership Academy. Turning Teens Around

Published: Mon, September 08, 2008 - 3:12 am Last Updated: Mon, September 08, 2008 - 3:58 am

Chad Petri

Around here, these grounds are known as the area's best kept secret.

“You're constantly connecting with these kids we say once you're in the camp martin family,” says Life Skills Director Shadrach Collins Junior. The Martin Youth Leadership Academy is a home for young men who've been through the juvenile justice system. We can't show you faces since they were all court ordered to be here. Many of the teenage boys here say it has had a big impact on them.

“Like most places you go to you'll get in trouble and they'll just be like 'you can't do that you're stupid' here they sit down and talk to you so you don't do it again, making the same mistakes twice,” says a 17-year-old cadet who wants to be called Ray. Don't let the razor wire on the outside fool you. This isn't a boot camp. The emphasis is on taxing your mind through education not taxing your body.

“If you put the work in, it'll pay off for you later, but many kids don't see this in their homes so they have a hard time processing it,” says Collins. Life skills Director Shadrach Collins junior says education is their top priority. The young men must finish 13 weeks with satisfactory work. Collins says they probably have a 60% success rate turning young lives away from crime and towards work

“When they learn and pay attention to their thoughts and their feelings they can control their behavior then therefore they can control their outcomes instead of the negative feedback they've been getting in the past,” says Collins. The program started as shock incarceration more than a decade ago; today it’s a therapeutic system emphasizing structure and discipline.