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Marcus
Gallegos, 19, grew up and fought to survive in the
Mission and Bayview districts of San Francisco  --
some of the city's toughest neighborhoods. With many
family members jailed for murder and drug
trafficking, including his own father, his first
arrest came at 13 while defending himself on a city
bus. "I was big for my age, and no bunch of
thugs were going to take my money," he said.
Today,
Marcus operates a small business running garage
sales that nets him around $100 to $200 per sale. He
also attends San Francisco City College, and mentors
two recent releases from the Youth Guidance Center,
the city's juvenile detention unit, known as "juvy"
by streetwise kids.
After
four arrests and lock-ups in juvy for assault,
fighting and robbery, Marcus spent his last 11
months at Log Cabin, a sparse, cement cinder-box
camp high in the Santa Cruz Mountains 60 miles south
of San Francisco. Log Cabin is the last stop for
underage repeat offenders before doing hard time in
adult prisons.
Inmates
are taught photography, and others
attend classes to get their high school diploma. At
Log Cabin, Marcus joined a small pilot program to
teach young offenders to become legitimate
entrepreneurs, part of the National Foundation for
Teaching Entrepreneurship's (NFTE) outreach program
in three major correctional facilities, two in New
York state and one in California.
In
1998, NFTE launched a business training program for
adolescent offenders at Island Academy High School
at Rikers Island, N.Y.C., the nation's largest
prison, and one at Greenhaven Prison in upstate New
York.
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