Utahns have high expectations for the state's new youth work camp in Draper. And those expectations are felt most heavily by the program's new director, Gary Webster.

The idea for the work camp was born during the state's 1993 crisis in dealing with juvenile crime. In the wake of two highly publicized shootings involving teenagers, Gov. Mike Leavitt asked Corrections officials what they could do to help Youth Corrections deal with its burgeoning population.They offered to move minimum security inmates to a barracks building at Camp Williams and give the Lone Peak facility to Youth Corrections. Webster said officials took a look at the building and told the governor they could use it in the development of a work-camp program.

Webster was chosen shortly after the Legislature approved the move. He says he looks forward to charting new territory.

"I just saw a neat opportunity in Lone Peak," he said. "It's a challenge to implement a new program. Most of all, it offers us an opportunity to serve some of the kids that we're missing right now."

Webster said the project will combine work with treatment in an effort to hold teens more accountable for their crimes. The kids will be out in the community during the day working on projects such as graffiti cleanup and maintenance of parks. Officials hope to begin placing kids in the program by April 1.

Webster, a native of Salt Lake City, has worked all of his adult life in corrections and youth corrections. After graduating from the University of Utah, he began working as a social worker at the Utah State Prison. He sat on the first criminal justice commission, worked as assistant director of Corrections and sat on the state's Board of Pardons and Parole.

After his term expired on the Board of Pardons, he worked again as a child-welfare investigator. In 1990 he came back to Youth Corrections and expects his new assignment will keep him in the division for a while.

He says he knows the public expects a lot from the work-camp program.

"It's going to have some impact on the problem," he said. But it is far from a cure-all. "Getting tough on crime traditionally means locking people up. We're only providing an additional 72 beds."

Webster said the program will help address the needs of gangsters and those who want to be in gangs. But final solutions have to come from the community.

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"Addressing the gang issue has to be multifaceted," he said. Families, schools, law enforcement and churches all need to be involved in changing current trends.

"Lone Peak (work camp) will have a small part in the multifaceted solution," he said. But Webster feels positive the program will be a success.

"There's enough enthusiasm in the state to make this a success," he said. And if it does take a bite out of the growing gang problem, Webster hopes to see more programs like this one in the future.

"(The program) will work with some of the kids," he said. "But it's not a panacea for all kids and their problems."

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