LAPD OFFICERS TO DOUBLE AS PARENT COUNSELORS.

Byline: Jaxon Van Derbeken Daily News Staff Writer

It's a hard sell, but Maria Martinez keeps telling her leery fellow LAPD officers that teaching parenting skills to the moms and dads of wayward teens will pay off in the fight against crime.

Martinez, a nine-year veteran who has been teaching classes for the past two years at Hollenbeck Division for parents of curfew violators, said many rank-and-file officers are skeptical of the Police Department's new curfew crackdown program.

``I get the question, `Why should you guys do this? You're police officers.' '' said Martinez. ``I say, because our kids have one foot in the grave and one foot in the jail.''

The plan adopted by the City Council last week authorizes a citywide program of semi-monthly sweeps aimed at children under 18 who are out after 10 p.m. with no good excuse.

Youths caught in the sweeps will be given a citation, much like a traffic ticket, and taken to the police station - where they will wait to be picked up by their parents.

Plans also call for police to conduct parent counseling sessions and possibly find ways to redirect wayward youths to more productive activities.

For hardened officers who have spent most of their careers on the street, the idea of getting into the parenting game is unsettling.

``What are we doing? We're getting further and further removed from police work. This is not what we are supposed to be doing,'' said one veteran officer.

Until now, police have not been routinely involved in curfew cases after a youth is given a citation and ordered to appear in traffic court with a parent.

The law allows judges to fine youths or order them to perform community service. Fines range from $135 for the standard curfew violation up to $675, but judges typically order 27 hours or more of community service in lieu of the fine.

Stating that a parent must be a proper guardian and provide ``proper care'' for their children, the law also permits judges to order a parent to go to counseling. If a youth fails to perform the community service, a judge can not only impose a fine but also delay the offender's driver's license.

For Police Commissioner Edith Perez, who was charged last fall by Mayor Richard Riordan with the job of launching a citywide curfew program, the hope is that police will go beyond writing citations to haul teens and parents before a juvenile court judge.

``This is part of community-based policing,'' she said. ``We need to have a broader definition of police work. You can't simply work on the symptoms. We have to get to the root of the problem.''

David Searcy, a former police officer who now oversees the county court charged with handling curfew violators, said the combined intervention of police and courts with families of wayward teens is on the cutting edge of modern law enforcement.

``People are now just catching on to the idea of early prevention and detection,'' he said, citing trends showing that by 2000, the problems associated with juveniles are expected to triple as the population of 14- to 17-year-olds expands.

``If they don't start preventing it now, we're in for trouble,'' he said. ``Kids are getting meaner and meaner - I don't know what causes it, but if they don't put a stop to it, you are going to have more and more kids with less and less moral conscience.''

The system in the Valley now amounts to community service for youths with little involvement by the police in the system, said Leora Krygier, the referee in charge of Van Nuys Juvenile Traffic Court, where curfew cases are sent.

She said she now gives youths and their parents a speech about the risks of becoming a target of crime by being out late and then sends them to community service. Most get the message, she said.

``I don't like to instill fear,'' she said. ``I'm just trying to save lives, basically.''

She said she is puzzled by the lack of responsibility shown by parents who come to her court.

``I'm a parent myself. I wonder about the control factor in other people and how they just kind of let go, allow their kids to be out and about.

``They do not know where their kids are. I personally don't understand it, but it seems more and more people just do that.''

So far this year, more than 1,700 youths have been cited for curfew violation in the Valley, according to juvenile court statistics. Countywide, the number of curfew violators exceeded 16,000 last year, and nearly 7,900 more so far this year.

Yet in only two city police divisions, Hollenbeck and Central, have curfew programs been expanded to actual police intervention with families. Backers of the new crackdown hold up both programs as models.

At Central Division, Officer Frank Di Paola runs a program that requires youths to put in 100 hours of community service, including painting out graffiti and working in neighborhoods.

It is sort of a boot camp, in which participants as young as 11 get hard lessons from Di Paola about learning responsibility. As they progress, youths get a chance to take acting classes and supervise other youths who come into the program, Di Paola said.

Di Paola, who is working to expand his ``Impact'' program statewide, said he is often asked why police should be involved in counseling youths or teaching their parents.

``We are the ones who pick them up when they get killed or shot,'' he said. ``We are the ones who are going to call their parents and tell them their kid has been killed. Why not the police? If we don't do it, who will?''

Di Paola said his program has handled 1,500 youths since its inception five years ago. An analysis of 150 kids who took part in the program after two years showed that 70 percent reported that the program had ``some positive'' result for them, while 30 percent said the program had done nothing for them, he said.

Under the Hollenbeck program, parents of curfew scofflaws are ordered to attend parenting sessions like the one Martinez teaches. The`re they learn everything from the importance of sitting down to dinner with their children to being able to spot the signs of drug abuse or gang involvement.

The six-week ``tough love'' parenting course, run by Martinez as well as local community workers, deals with basic issues.

Over six weeks, Martinez and her partner teach two-hour classes on love and affection, improving communication, setting limits and spotting the warning signs of drug abuse and gang involvement.

At the end, parents get a completion certificate to show to the court.

``What we try to do is, even if you have 10 kids and you're busy as heck, we say, pay attention, you are responsible for each one, unless you don't mind burying them at 13,'' she said. ``We call it back to basics.''

Marina Martinez, a civilian who hosts the parenting programs at El Sereno Middle School, said the classes have a waiting list and are getting rave reviews.

``When they asked me if I wanted it, I was kind of leery about the police and this and that,'' she said. ``When I saw it, I was really surprised.''

She said the officers got the message across. ``We didn't look at them as police officers or anything - they are real honest, tell you the truth, didn't hide anything.

``They talk about drugs, gangs, how to help your child, almost everything,'' she said. ``I really like this, and I've never had a parent who said, we don't want the police.''

LAPD Cmdr. Richard LeGarra, who is overseeing the new citywide program, says the five pilot project divisions, which include Foothill and Devonshire in the Valley, could have their programs up and running within a month. The department's other 13 police divisions will follow as soon as possible.

He said the plan, as envisioned, will not be funded by overtime.

He points to the Hollenbeck and Central programs - paid for only with the salaries of the officers staffing them - as examples of the kind of programs that can be implemented.