Gov.’s Youth Prison Plan Is Criticized

One year after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vowed to make the state’s youth prisons places where inmates receive “a better chance to succeed in life,” his administration Wednesday released a court-mandated plan to carry out that vision, outlining a therapeutic approach that has proved successful elsewhere in the country.

The long-awaited blueprint proposes cutting in half the number of youths housed together, changing how guards handle unruly wards, ensuring that all receive therapy, eliminating extended solitary confinement for misbehavior, and more carefully screening incoming juveniles so they are housed and treated according to their needs.

It also suggests transferring California’s 155 female wards into secure residential programs and says reform will probably be impossible unless the state closes its “decrepit” youth lock-ups and opens new or renovated facilities that are state of the art.

Though supportive of the principles at the heart of the plan, lawyers, legislators and relatives of young offenders called it skimpy on details. They also lamented that neither the document, nor the officials unveiling it, mentioned how much the changes would cost and where money to accomplish the task would be found.

“The state worked hard on this plan, and I know their intentions are good,” said Donald Specter of the Prison Law Office, the nonprofit firm that sued the state over its management of juvenile corrections. “But there are too many unanswered questions for us to feel confident that we will eventually have a system that keeps kids safe and protects the public.”

Specter said he and other attorneys were so disappointed by the lack of specifics that they considered filing a motion seeking to hold state officials in contempt of court for violating a settlement agreement, reached last year, in which Schwarzenegger vowed to make reforms.

Instead, Specter said, the Prison Law Office and state struck an agreement late Wednesday requiring the state to hire by Jan. 3 six national juvenile justice experts. The team, which will include the former youth prison chiefs of Massachusetts and Illinois, will help make immediate changes inside prisons and fine-tune the long-term plan, he said.

The clash over the beleaguered youth system comes as Schwarzenegger faces intense criticism for another aspect of his massive corrections department: a lack of progress on fixing profound problems with medical care for the state’s 168,000 adult prisoners.

On Monday, a federal judge overseeing that issue sternly warned the governor to get involved and get the problem fixed, urging him to pay for emergency reforms “the same way you find the money to build a tent to smoke cigars” outside his Capitol office.

U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson said he was “taking the gloves off” and would hold a hearing on a contempt motion soon unless Schwarzenegger appoints someone with authority to overcome the “no-can-do bureaucratic mind-set” that has thwarted progress on adult inmate healthcare.

Noting that nothing has changed since court inspectors reported that an average of one inmate dies of medical neglect or incompetence each week, Henderson warned that he would soon issue an order spelling out what the governor must do.

Like prison healthcare, the question of how best to house and manage the state’s youngest lawbreakers -- 3,149 wards ages 12 to 25 -- has dogged government officials for years.

Decades ago, California’s prisons for juveniles were hailed nationally for their success in turning around lives. But over time, officials acknowledge, a culture of punishment and control replaced a softer, more paternalistic approach.

In recent years, independent experts have criticized almost every aspect of youth prisons, including the use of force by staff, medical and mental healthcare and the practice of isolating unruly youths in their cells almost around the clock for months on end.

Just as disturbing, critics say, is the fact that the state’s investment in the system -- about $450 million a year, or more than $140,000 per ward -- delivers a poor return in public safety. Statistics show that three out of four youths are back in custody within three years of their release.

Despite agreement on the system’s problems, efforts to improve it have stumbled, the victim of political indifference and disagreement over what constitutes a successful approach.

Last year, however, activists thought a historic corner had been turned as Schwarzenegger visited a youth prison to announce a new emphasis on rehabilitation.

In settling the Prison Law Office suit that had challenged conditions, Schwarzenegger agreed to build a new model.

But since then, critics say, progress has been agonizingly slow, and some question whether Schwarzenegger’s sagging popularity has made him leery of making corrections a priority.

“It’s a question of political courage, and it doesn’t look like the governor has enough of it to close these terrible prisons and create a system that works,” said Jakada Imani, field director for Books Not Bars, which represents relatives of many wards.

David Steinhart, a noted juvenile justice consultant who has advised the state on reforms, also expressed frustration, saying “the momentum for change has slowed to a crawl, and the commitment just doesn’t seem to be there at the top.”

A spokeswoman for Schwarzenegger, Julie Soderlund, said the governor remains “fully committed to bringing necessary reform to California’s juvenile justice system.”

Bernard Warner, chief deputy secretary of juvenile justice, echoed that sentiment, noting that other states that shifted their youth prisons from a punitive to a rehabilitative model, such as Missouri and Colorado, took many years to accomplish the change.

The plan was filed Wednesday in Alameda County Superior Court as part of the lawsuit settlement. Funding will be specified in the governor’s next budget, scheduled for release in January.

Warner, who was appointed by Schwarzenegger in August, said the plan would be phased in over five years. In the first 18 months, he said, the state would roll out a more refined screening process for incoming inmates, replacing the current method of categorizing them merely by gender, age and gang affiliation.

Officials also will replace the use of temporary detention, or the extended isolation of youths who fight or commit other misconduct, with a new behavior management program that includes positive reinforcement and steps wards must follow to rejoin normal housing.

Another important change, Warner said, is moving beyond a “one-size-fits-all” correctional employee to multiple categories of staff, allowing those with more of a social work orientation to specialize in treatment while others focus on security.

Shortly before noon Wednesday, a few dozen protesters showed up at Schwarzenegger’s office, delivering letters from incarcerated teenagers as well as petitions with 3,200 signatures demanding that the most notorious of the youth prisons, N.A. Chaderjian Youth Correctional Facility in Stockton, be closed. Instead, the plan recommends converting the prison into one for treatment of sex offenders and those who are mentally ill.

Among those protesting was Oralee Small, whose grandson, Dyron Brewer, died in September 2004 while serving time at Chaderjian. He is one of three wards -- including Joseph Maldonado, who hanged himself with his bedding in August -- to die at the prison in the last two years.