This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2008, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Caught by a bounty hunter on a Utah highway after eight months on the lam, Brittney Thornton hit a new low.
The Bountiful teenager, sentenced in juvenile court after a DUI and two other alcohol-related citations in one week, had already been through a juvenile detention center and ran away from a foster family's care.
This time, a judge in November ordered her to work off her $750 fine at Utah's only residential work camp for juveniles, the Genesis Youth Center in Draper.
The program aims to reach the state's youngest offenders who haven't found success in other programs geared toward rehabilitation. There, they can make money to pay court-ordered restitution, complete community service hours and enroll in an education program.
Work ranges from hard physical labor - such as light construction, painting, mowing lawns, building fences and snow removal - to community service with the elderly and disabled schoolchildren.
"They learn team-building and they learn pride in themselves," said Annette Adams, associate program director. "A lot of these kids don't know what it's like to have a healthy relationship."
On a recent day, a crew of teenage girls helped during an adaptive physical education class at the Dan Peterson School in American Fork. Assisting the school's mentally and physically disabled students changed the mindset of one 16-year-old admitted to the program to work off about 1,000 hours of a sentence for a string of robberies and thefts last year.
"I could be having a hard time with something, and when I see these guys, it's nothing," she said while rolling a basketball back and forth with a 6-year-old who has Down syndrome. "I have no doubt I would have been dead [without work camp]. This place has changed me so much."
Establishing work-camp programs in the early 1990s, Utah bucked a trend in other states to create boot camps - programs that put juveniles through military-like rehabilitation without the education and restitution Genesis offers, said Dan Maldonado, director of the administrative office for Juvenile Justice Services.
Last year alone juveniles at Genesis Youth Center paid out more than $300,000 to victims.
Robert "Tree Bob" Brossard of Salt Lake City is one victim who will benefit from the program. Brossard owns one of two homes in the Avenues that burned after a 15-year-old accompanied by two 13-year-olds set fire to a bush in the 400 East block of Sixth Avenue and the fire spread to surrounding homes.
District Juvenile Court Judge Kimberly Hornak ordered the 15-year-old to juvenile detention until space became available at a work camp. Between the restitution from the work camp and insurance, Brossard said he expects to regain nearly the entire cost to replace his home's fire-gutted second floor.
He is pleased with the way the juvenile courts handled the case.
"Even though they were truants and have probably been going around causing neighborhood havoc, I think they're just boys," said Brossard.
Third District Juvenile Court Judge Andrew Valdez said the work camp provides the chance to change the belief systems of children who often go without supervision. He spearheaded a movement to expand Genesis to include female offenders five years ago.
"[Work camps] remove them from the community for public protection purposes and get them away from the negative influences of their friends," Valdez said. "It gives them some time to reflect. "
Youths sent to Genesis have a constant reminder of where a life of continued crime could lead: outside Genesis's back door sits the Utah State Prison.
Thornton now holds a job and shares an apartment with a friend. She said the program helped her put her past behind her - the bounty hunter who spotted her on a Salt Lake Valley road and stopped her from eluding the juvenile system any longer gave her a fresh start.
"This one was the one that will keep me out of trouble. It scared the crap out of me," said Thornton, who earned her GED during her 60 days spent at Genesis, and this month celebrated receiving termination papers as a ward of the juvenile courts.
"Without [work camp] I'd probably still be running. I'm way glad it's done and over with."
Genesis Youth Center
Genesis Youth Center in Draper opened in 1994 in the building that formerly housed the Utah State Prison's female inmates. The facility can house 40 boys and 10 girls who must prove they are not a threat to themselves or others. Some statistics:
* Youths served: 264
* Average nightly bed count: 38.7
* Average length of stay: 61 days