Luring Offenders From a Life of Crime : Rehabilitation: Novel program sends youths on deep-sea fishing trip. Commissioner who sentenced them helps them bait their poles and offers advice.

“Hookup!” shouted a deckhand as he saw a fishing pole suddenly bend to the accompanying wail of a saltwater reel.

“Fish on!” yelled skipper Ted Cohen as fishermen scrambled along the stern of the “Champagne Wishes” and cleared the way for the teen-ager who was reeling furiously and grimacing noticeably as the others cheered him on.

The battle Saturday in waters off the Long Beach Harbor was between a seven-pound yellowtail and a 16-year-old who was there because he is a juvenile offender fighting his way back from a criminal conviction for auto theft.

“I’ve never caught a fish this big before,” said the smiling youth after landing his prized catch. “I’ve never been on a boat like this.”

For Kenya, a Long Beach teen-ager, and eight other boys placed on probation by the juvenile court, Saturday’s fishing trip was a rare adventure and novice attempt by a Los Angeles County Superior Court commissioner to introduce the youths to a deep-sea experience.

“I thought it would be a new experience for many of them, different than what they see all day long on the streets,” said Commissioner Robert B. Axel, who had sentenced some of these teen-agers in his Long Beach courtroom.

“When you get them out here like this, they’re just kids, no different than any other kid anywhere,” he said. “The problem they have is on the streets, and we want to help change that.”

Axel, a 16-year veteran of the juvenile court system and a member of the Huntington Harbor Yacht Club, said several of his fellow members enthusiastically volunteered their boats for the youths--including some gang members--who have been placed on probation or sent to counseling sessions by the courts.

Targeting juvenile delinquents who appeared to show promise or effort in changing their ways, Axel purchased rods and reels to give to the youths and received donations from a local sporting goods company and hardware store for his venture. The commissioner invited local probation officers and counselors to select the youths who would go on the fishing trip and specifically asked them to include youths he had sentenced.

One of those teen-agers was Ethen, a sandy-haired 16-year-old who had been placed on probation for vandalizing a telephone booth with graffiti and being found with cans of spray paint. It was Axel who sentenced him to six months’ probation, the youth said, and he was apprehensive about meeting the commissioner again.

“I thought this was going to be boring going out with the judge and your probation officer and counselors, like being with a bunch of nerds,” he said. “But it was fun, and I even caught dinner.”

Kenya said he also had doubts about the trip, especially when he experienced the first rush of sea sickness as the boat left the dock. But the soft-spoken youth, sporting a heart-shaped stud and second earring and his Air Jordan basketball shoes, said he forgot his discomfort when his yellowtail catch became the first strike of the morning.

By day’s end, the teen-agers had ice chests full of mackerel, yellowtail, sea bass and barracuda. Still, some of the novice fishermen also managed to snare each other’s lines, snag a bait net and hook onto two neighboring boats that sped away--with hook, line and sinker.

Ruth Shapiro, a probation officer who accompanied some of the youths, said she was impressed with the program that Axel is hoping to make an annual event.

“I think it was worthwhile because they were taken out of their neighborhoods,” she said. “They were on with other kids and they were able to see nature.”

Earlier in the day, two of the boats carrying the youths nearly brushed together as their anchors became entangled. Shapiro said a collision was averted when the boys assisted one another.

“They learned to help each other, one kid was pushing and the other was working with him (to free the boats),” she said. “It was a very positive experience.”

For Shapiro and several other adults, as well as a few teen-agers, the day’s only drawback was sea sickness.

Alex, a 14-year-old from Long Beach, was victimized by a queasy stomach and soon abandoned his fishing spot, largely ignoring the shouts of excitement as the fish were hauled in by the others. Instead, he spent most of the six-hour trip sitting on the bow, shielded by his Miami Dolphins hat and black jacket or lying down trying to overcome his nausea.

But he remained enthusiastic about the fishing trip.

Earlier this year, the teen-ager said he had been caught riding in a car stolen by another person and was placed on six months’ probation. The juvenile court commissioner who sentenced him was the same man who had invited him aboard and now stood nearby baiting hooks and coaching the basics of fishing.

Alex said he had no animosity toward the commissioner or any regrets about coming on the trip.

“It kept me off the streets today,” he said. “That’s where you get in trouble sometime. I’m not in trouble today.”