Merced Sun-Star
SUN-STAR PHOTO BY MARCI STENBERG Emerald D. Mouton with her dog tags that say, Imagine, Believe and Achieve December 11, 2009
Not long ago, Emerald Mouton couldn't cross a bridge without thinking of throwing herself over the edge.
"Will I die, or just be paralyzed?" she would wonder, as she grappled with severe depression and an increasingly isolated existence.
Mouton had lived a life of drugs, depression, then more drugs. In one single month last year, she lost her job, her home and her children.
Things were rough.
Then, at rock bottom, Mouton was referred to Merced County Probation's Day Reporting Program, by her probation officer. (She'd been arrested on drug charges earlier this decade.)
"I was tore up when I came in here," Mouton recently recalled. "Now I can hold my head up when I go outside."
Since the Day Reporting Center was opened in March 2008, more than 110 adults have completed the program, and 50 were still enrolled as of Sept. 30, according to an internal data report. An additional 134 juveniles have completed the program, with another 30 still involved.
Mouton, 36, is one of the first graduates.
Recently, the department received an award from the California State Association for Counties, which looks for innovative county government programs.
The program focuses on rebuilding the lives of residents with criminal records by providing structure and stability when offenders are just released from detention, and later helping them find housing, employment and drug and alcohol counseling.
The average time spent in the program for adults is 132 days. Juveniles stay for an average of 58 days.
On average, 31 percent of the adults are employed when they enter the program. Sixty-six percent leave with a job.
The county runs the program through a partnership with Behavioral Interventions, an international company that contracts with government agencies to provide community corrections services.
Each time someone reports to the center, they are fingerprinted at the door. This process proves without doubt the clients are meeting the requirements of their probation agreements, said Patty Carter, program manager at the center.
Probationers at an anger management group meeting on Friday said the program had encouraged them to stop "testing dirty" on drug screenings and to find jobs.
"You can't buy that at Wal-Mart," quipped Chris Castaneda, a behavioral change manager at the center.
Castaneda tells his group members about "doing time." The ancient Greeks had two words for time: kairos and chronos, he explained.
Kairos describes "quality of time," Castaneda said.
Chronos is purely an incremental measure, like minutes, years, months.
"Here, in this room, you can do kairos," Castaneda said. "If you want to do chronos, there's this building out on Sandy Mush we can send you to."
Along the back wall of the room is perhaps the starkest example of what the kairos in the program can do for criminals-cum-community servants: a massive mural of a bridge, meant to symbolize hope, painted by Mouton.
Through her time in the program, Mouton has found a new home, enrolled in art school, commissioned other murals around town and regained custody of her children. She's off excessive medications for mental health issues, and feels balanced while taking just one pill a day.
"It's not just what I've done," Mouton said. "It's what each and every one of the people here have done."
Reporter Danielle E. Gaines can be reached at (209) 385-2477 or dgaines@mercedsun-star.com.
