Brian Petrilla
Anchorage, AK
At age 15 I was just starting my process of officially rebelling against my parents, school officials and any other person in a position of authority who didn’t “understand” me. I was a freshman at East High School in Anchorage and did a very good job of “bottling up” all my feelings and emotions about my life, my problems and my relationships with everyone. The youth you hear about, the ones who stray off course because they had no direction and nobody to focus them in on something positive, well that may have been my story you were hearing. Many of my problems may have been common adolescent issues involved with growing up, however, in my mind I was unique and so were my problems. Always able to keep just under the radar and not bring too much attention to myself with the trouble I caused, I became a ticking, juvenile time bomb that most people were unaware of. The people who thought there may be some growing issues were easy to put off and questioned me very little after being told there was nothing wrong and that I wanted to be left alone.
My life was increasingly more complicated as time went on after turning 15. I experimented with drinking and smoking marijuana. My friends changed from childhood companions to newer, more negative influences who encouraged a more criminal lifestyle. In hindsight my life took a predictable yet gradual turn down a path of dropping grades, skipping school, getting drunk, getting high and deeper and deeper into a lifestyle no parent would be proud of. I felt I knew it all and nobody could possibly understand me so why try to share. If only someone would have pushed me, slapped me in the face, pissed me off enough to open me up and stayed on top of me maybe, just maybe things would have been different. Unfortunately, as I said earlier, I was good at keeping things inside and hidden, very good at keeping off the radar and going unnoticed. At the lowest point of my schooling I managed to get a grade of C in Physical Education without even showing up for class. Of course I failed all my other classes since I had stopped going to school altogether by the age of 16.
At the age of 16 there weren’t too many up’s in my life. I ran away from home, dropped out of school, went to live with an older friend who had an apartment and got a job at a gas station. In the early 90’s Anchorage was having a spike in juvenile crime and new gang activity which I found attractive and became involved with. Finding a group to belong to seemed to give me what was missing in my life. The group could have been the football team, the baseball team or some other organized activity but since I didn’t know anything about those things the gang life appealed to me. I guess my upside was all these new friends, my peers seemed to respect me more, other youth didn’t give me any problems and I was living the high life with my minimum wage gas station job and no real bills to pay. The down side of course was increased criminal activity, fighting, robbing, shooting, drugs, you name it. After several months my new lifestyle started to wear on me. Every gang has enemies, the police were trying to catch us in whatever criminal act they could, and my gas station paychecks turned out not to be enough to live on. What I decided I needed was a simple solution to a wrong choice in lifestyle and I could figure that out. Well, what I figured out wasn’t such a great solution after all. I decided to rob a bank. Robbing a bank would solve all my problems. I could get rich, pay all my bills, have money to burn and go back to school if I wanted. Pretty naïve plan but that didn’t stop me. I borrowed a gun from a friend, there was no shortage of guns, went to one of the local banks and on September 9th, 1993 my life changed forever. At 17 years old, I committed armed robbery of a federal credit union, got away with less than $2000 and was in police custody approximately 15 minutes after leaving the scene. After some processing by the police I was taken to Mclaughlin Youth Center and there I sat.
This period of time was the most stressful time in my life hands down. Even now as an adult of 30 years I have never experienced the stress and emotional hardship as having to go through court proceedings, the juvenile justice system, process and admit to the criminal acts I committed, be under confinement for two full years and under the 24 hour watch of juvenile justice staff. As stressful as the process was it was a positive turning point in my life. My lawyer was a dedicated public defender who believed in me, fought to keep me out of the adult system and won a long, drawn out process to place me in the juvenile system for treatment. While in treatment at McLaughlin Youth Center there were a few very special counselors who took interest in me, worked with me, talked with me and most importantly, listened to me. These people, my public defender, the counselors both good and bad, the system as a whole changed me. Maybe “changed me” is the wrong phrase, they focused me, motivated me and prepared me to take on the world in a more positive fashion. I gained much respect for the staff I dealt with at McLaughlin and a select few who made me feel like they really cared. Certain staff truly influenced my life and gave me the much needed guidance to succeed.
Success in life. I think success is a very personal judgment. What are your goals, what are your dreams, what do you desire out of life and are you pursuing those goals, dreams and desires? For me, my experience with the juvenile justice system in Alaska was so earth shaking that I have dedicated my life to the Human Services field. I am trying to make a living by working with people in crisis, offering help and planting seeds of hope and change. My current position is as an Eligibility Technician II with the State of Alaska’s Division of Public Assistance, which I have held for over seven years. I’m a caseworker who determines what kind of state and federal assistance I can offer to families in need. My passion, of course, is working with youth. I have worked in several treatment centers, volunteered to work with youth through Anchorage Youth Court, mentored youth transitioning out of McLaughlin Youth Center and continue to work part-time with youth as an on-call caseworker at Covenant House Alaska’s Crisis Center. The next goal I am actively pursuing is gaining employment at McLaughlin Youth Center as a Juvenile Probation Officer. This goal is proving to be a challenge for me but if I’ve learned anything it’s that dedication and hard work is what it takes to achieve your goals.
