CHARLESTON – John, 18, figures he would have been shot and killed had it not been for the intervention of police and his stay at Mountain View Youth Development Center.

Before his arrest, the young man’s ambition was to steal anything he could get his hands on, including drugs.

It was a route he started early in life that led to 46 burglaries and expulsion from school in the ninth grade for selling drugs.

The only one of five siblings to get into trouble, John was a rebel who butted heads with his elders. He wanted to be close to his family, but when that was impossible, he said he became close to friends who helped feed his drug habit.

“I didn’t care, I didn’t care what anybody thought,” he said of that period in his life.

After months of incarceration, John, not his true identity because of confidentiality laws, figures there is life outside of detention facilities and there is life without “crank and weed.”

“I wasn’t made to spend my entire life in jail,” the young man from Franklin County said Tuesday, while washing dishes in the kitchen at the development center.

His turnabout wasn’t easy, John admitted. Time behind bars and locked doors gave him an opportunity to work through his emotions, learn ways to control his impulsive behaviors, and it provided him motivation and a chance to earn his General Equivalency Diploma.

Becoming one of more than 50 juveniles to have received a GED, or high school diploma, since the new development center opened in 2001, surprised even him.

“It’s something I never thought I’d see,” John said. Nor was a future at college, a job or a family of his own in his outlook, but that too has changed.

With his release scheduled in March, John hopes to secure a grant to study accounting at a college.

Principal Jefferson Prestridge has seen lots of juveniles like John pass through his accredited school and aspire to be productive residents and crime-free. There are those who make it and those who don’t.

He said statistics show that about 30 percent of those who are released from the Charleston facility become re-offenders, a figure that is less than the national average, he said.

While at the facility, the young men and women receive a well-rounded education and experience in 10 interest areas including culinary arts, art, music, building trades, small engine repair, multimedia and computer technology.

But perhaps the most important component is the help juveniles receive in how to understand and deal with their stress, emotions and attitudes.

“The teachers really mentor the kids, guide them, counsel, support and teach them,” Prestridge said. With small classrooms – the current enrollment is about 64 – teachers are able to give one-on-one attention to the juveniles who need extra help.

“A lot of success comes from a two-way street of respect, communication, and trust,” Gary Gray, a teacher at the facility, said.

A two-way street that eluded John earlier in his life. His hope is that others wise up before they, too, find themselves behind locked doors with their only view to the outside world obscured by metal bars.

“Listen to your elders, listen to people that have actually gone through what you’re going through,” he advised.