Watsonville Police youth diversion program helping keep teens out of trouble

A Watsonville police program aimed at helping troubled teens stay on track is getting statewide attention.

It’s called Caminos Hacia el Éxito.

Watsonville Police Chief David Honda was recently invited to Sacramento to talk about the department’s youth diversion program and explain how it is helping hundreds of local teens.

“We have intervention programs using counselors for different issues that are affecting our youth today; depression, anxiety and stuff like that,” Watsonville Police Chief David Honda said. “We also have restorative circles. The offender, the victim and the community come together and they have dialogues to discuss what the actions that kid actually did and the ramifications of that and how it affects other people.”

Watsonville Police said the program has helped teens like Juan Valencia. He was 16-years-old when he had his first run-in with police. Valencia had no idea what to expect after committing a misdemeanor.

“Coming here to the police station it was kind of frightening,” Valencia said.

Instead of heading straight to the juvenile justice system, the teen was referred to Caminos Hacia el Éxito or Caminos for short.

“It’s like an opportunity to like start fresh, better myself and also learn,” the teen explained.

The National Center for Youth Law invited Chief Honda to the state capital to talk about the program in hopes of getting lawmakers to set aside money to implement similar programs across the state.

“People always ask ‘well, how do we know this works?’ Well, it’s been working in Watsonville and they’ve been trying to expand for a while but they don’t have that dedicated funding stream that they need to be able to take what they know works and make sure every youth has that opportunity, ” said Anna Johnson from The National Center for Youth.

According to Watsonville Police, since 2012, more than 450 teens have participated in Caminos. 91 percent did not re-offend six months after completing the program.

“These programs cost money, but it costs more money to have a kid incarcerated for minor offenses. In the long run, it benefits us too because these kids become productive parts and leaders of our society,” said Chief Honda.

Juan Valencia is now 17-years-old and hopes to become a marine biologist one day.