Kathy
02-26-2004, 08:43 PM
Pasadena Star-News
It's time to scuttle or change California Youth Authority
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 - IT'S time to admit it: Until now California has been a failure in the juvenile corrections business.
Five recently released expert reports on the California Youth Authority (CYA) contained stinging indictments of the conditions and programs offered in its 10 prisons. The reports were so damning they even surprised some of CYA's most ardent critics.
Now that the verdict is in, the question is what to do? Should CYA be one of those boxes the governor has talked about blowing up?
The time for tinkering is over. We should explore shuttering the Youth Authority or drastically altering it to better meet its mission of rehabilitation. Talks should begin immediately with all stakeholders probation officers, juvenile court judges, prosecutors, CYA employees, and others to consider whether to create local or regional facilities to replace the Youth Authority.
San Mateo County has already taken action by imposing a moratorium on sending its juvenile offenders to CYA, while San Francisco County will consider doing the same next week.
Reading the expert reports, there is only one conclusion you can draw the CYA is guilty of fraud. It defrauds taxpayers, who expect rehabilitation and safer communities for the $80,000 they spend annually on every CYA ward. It defrauds counties that entrust their youthful offenders to the state.
And, most tragically, it defrauds parents who hope that the terms their children serve at CYA will change them for the better, when often they see their children come out harder, more angry and mentally unstable, and more criminally sophisticated.
CYA's mission is to protect the public through programs that offer wards alternatives to violence, drug addiction, gangs and lawlessness. But we have known for years, and the reports have confirmed in unnerving detail, that it is the CYA itself that is in dire need of reform.
We can no longer look the other way. Right now, CYA is just a training ground for the terribly troubled California Department of Corrections, a gladiatorial school where wards hone their criminal skills.
Sure, there are CYA success stories. Some kids do well in CYA, get out and live productive lives. Occasionally a flower blossoms in a field of weeds. But with a recidivism rate between 50 and 90 percent, depending upon whose data you quote, it is obvious CYA too often fails its mission of rehabilitation.
To be fair, the Youth Authority does face unique challenges. It is home to some of the state's most violent youthful offenders. Its facilities are too big and too old. Unlike any other state, it houses wards up to 25 years of age and the gang culture is pervasive. Some wards have already been to prison, and many have mental health problems. A 2001 assessment found that vast majority of CYA wards had multiple mental-health disorders.
But the fact is the CYA has often been too slow to act on recommendations for reform. The recent series of expert reports were replete with references to unimplemented recommendations from prior reports and studies.
For instance, in 2002 the Office of the Inspector General found that the mental health delivery system in CYA's lockdown units was in "complete disarray.'
Yet, there was still no mental- health service protocol in place for lockdown units on January 19 when two cellmates at high risk for suicide killed themselves in the Ironwood lockdown unit at Preston, the CYA prison in Ione.
At the time of their deaths, both were on psychotropic medications and one was awaiting placement in a mental-health unit. Today, CYA has nearly 30 wards with diagnosed mental health problems in lockdown units.
When I toured Preston last week with newly appointed CYA Director Walter Allen, there was at least one other ward considered high risk for suicide still confined in that same dank, depressing lockdown unit at Preston.
Another ward at Preston had been in a second lockdown unit, called Tamarack, for 188 days a nightmarish vision from a Dickens novel!
This is outrageous. This is heartbreaking. This has to stop immediately.
Most of what I saw at Preston was depressing. Some of it was appalling. But none of it was unique to Preston. Such problems are found throughout the CYA system.
These problems have been mounting for years, largely ignored by past administrations. They are now in the capable hands of YACA Secretary Roderick Hickman and Allen. Both have pledged to clean up CYA. But this job will take much more than words and good will.
Today, as in the past, the Youth Authority is in the spotlight of controversy. We have allowed past scandals to blow over with little or no reform. Not this time. The light must continue to shine until the job is done.
We owe it to the taxpayers and our communities but mostly to the wards and their parents to rehabilitate our juvenile corrections system. It must be more than an expressway to the Department of Corrections. State Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, represents the 24th Senate district.
It's time to scuttle or change California Youth Authority
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 - IT'S time to admit it: Until now California has been a failure in the juvenile corrections business.
Five recently released expert reports on the California Youth Authority (CYA) contained stinging indictments of the conditions and programs offered in its 10 prisons. The reports were so damning they even surprised some of CYA's most ardent critics.
Now that the verdict is in, the question is what to do? Should CYA be one of those boxes the governor has talked about blowing up?
The time for tinkering is over. We should explore shuttering the Youth Authority or drastically altering it to better meet its mission of rehabilitation. Talks should begin immediately with all stakeholders probation officers, juvenile court judges, prosecutors, CYA employees, and others to consider whether to create local or regional facilities to replace the Youth Authority.
San Mateo County has already taken action by imposing a moratorium on sending its juvenile offenders to CYA, while San Francisco County will consider doing the same next week.
Reading the expert reports, there is only one conclusion you can draw the CYA is guilty of fraud. It defrauds taxpayers, who expect rehabilitation and safer communities for the $80,000 they spend annually on every CYA ward. It defrauds counties that entrust their youthful offenders to the state.
And, most tragically, it defrauds parents who hope that the terms their children serve at CYA will change them for the better, when often they see their children come out harder, more angry and mentally unstable, and more criminally sophisticated.
CYA's mission is to protect the public through programs that offer wards alternatives to violence, drug addiction, gangs and lawlessness. But we have known for years, and the reports have confirmed in unnerving detail, that it is the CYA itself that is in dire need of reform.
We can no longer look the other way. Right now, CYA is just a training ground for the terribly troubled California Department of Corrections, a gladiatorial school where wards hone their criminal skills.
Sure, there are CYA success stories. Some kids do well in CYA, get out and live productive lives. Occasionally a flower blossoms in a field of weeds. But with a recidivism rate between 50 and 90 percent, depending upon whose data you quote, it is obvious CYA too often fails its mission of rehabilitation.
To be fair, the Youth Authority does face unique challenges. It is home to some of the state's most violent youthful offenders. Its facilities are too big and too old. Unlike any other state, it houses wards up to 25 years of age and the gang culture is pervasive. Some wards have already been to prison, and many have mental health problems. A 2001 assessment found that vast majority of CYA wards had multiple mental-health disorders.
But the fact is the CYA has often been too slow to act on recommendations for reform. The recent series of expert reports were replete with references to unimplemented recommendations from prior reports and studies.
For instance, in 2002 the Office of the Inspector General found that the mental health delivery system in CYA's lockdown units was in "complete disarray.'
Yet, there was still no mental- health service protocol in place for lockdown units on January 19 when two cellmates at high risk for suicide killed themselves in the Ironwood lockdown unit at Preston, the CYA prison in Ione.
At the time of their deaths, both were on psychotropic medications and one was awaiting placement in a mental-health unit. Today, CYA has nearly 30 wards with diagnosed mental health problems in lockdown units.
When I toured Preston last week with newly appointed CYA Director Walter Allen, there was at least one other ward considered high risk for suicide still confined in that same dank, depressing lockdown unit at Preston.
Another ward at Preston had been in a second lockdown unit, called Tamarack, for 188 days a nightmarish vision from a Dickens novel!
This is outrageous. This is heartbreaking. This has to stop immediately.
Most of what I saw at Preston was depressing. Some of it was appalling. But none of it was unique to Preston. Such problems are found throughout the CYA system.
These problems have been mounting for years, largely ignored by past administrations. They are now in the capable hands of YACA Secretary Roderick Hickman and Allen. Both have pledged to clean up CYA. But this job will take much more than words and good will.
Today, as in the past, the Youth Authority is in the spotlight of controversy. We have allowed past scandals to blow over with little or no reform. Not this time. The light must continue to shine until the job is done.
We owe it to the taxpayers and our communities but mostly to the wards and their parents to rehabilitate our juvenile corrections system. It must be more than an expressway to the Department of Corrections. State Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, represents the 24th Senate district.