CYA Prison Fails Youths, Audit Says

The state prison housing some of California’s most difficult young felons is a dangerous place that fails to provide the education, counseling and other help inmates need to straighten out their lives, the state’s Office of the Inspector General said Tuesday.

In echoing earlier criticism of the California Youth Authority, the audit provides a unique window on a single prison and underscores the breadth of problems -- from faulty fences to negligent care -- faced by the state.

During a six-month investigation, Inspector General Matthew Cate found that staff members at the N.A. Chaderjian Youth Correctional Facility in Stockton were either ill-trained or too consumed with security tasks to counsel youths as required by law.

Inmates on medication for mental disorders are not consistently monitored, the audit said, and prison high school classes are canceled more than a third of the time, mostly because teachers don’t show up.

Cate also criticized prison managers for not following suicide prevention protocols, noting that two teenagers killed themselves in a state lockup last year.

And he said the prison was “riddled” with security and design defects. Fences that separate exercise yards for rival gang members are inadequate, doors to inmates’ cells pop open unexpectedly when electrical motors overheat, and surveillance cameras often fail to work.

Overall, the authority is failing “in its core mission of providing youths in its care with the education and treatment services they need to avoid future criminality,” said Cate, a gubernatorial appointee who is the state’s independent watchdog over the correctional system.

Other states have shown that with the right approach, young convicts “can change their behavior,” Cate said. “With recidivism rates at 70%, the Youth Authority owes it to the public to do a better job.”

The audit is the latest gloomy assessment of the CYA, which houses more than 3,200 convicts, ages 12 to 25, in eight prisons and two camps. Critics say it is outrageous that, given the level of attention on the system, basic problems remain unfixed.

“We’ve seen report after report after report on the California Youth Authority,” said Laura Talkington of Fresno, a member of the advocacy group Books Not Bars whose son, David, is incarcerated at Chaderjian. “We all know how bad it is. Why is there no action?”

Sue Burrell of the nonprofit Youth Law Center, which has sued the CYA over specific problems over the last few decades, agreed. “I say bring in the bulldozers, because they obviously can’t fix it themselves,” Burrell said.

The audit comes about a week after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration pledged as part of a lawsuit settlement to adopt a new model for the troubled youth prisons.

Though specifics will not be released until November, officials said the CYA of the future would feature small living units and a therapeutic culture that had been successful in Colorado, Missouri and elsewhere.

Meanwhile, the CYA’s director said short-term fixes are underway, though he did not dispute the audit’s findings.

“There were no surprises, but an audit looks only at the bad things, and there are good things going on as well,” said Director Walter Allen III.

He said that a newly hired high school principal would address educational deficiencies; that staff members had undergone suicide prevention training over the winter; and that additional counselors would soon join the workforce at Chaderjian.

Allen said he agreed with critics that the Stockton facility was “a prison design not conducive” to rehabilitating youths. He said there was money in the governor’s revised budget to look at new designs.

“I cannot straighten out 25 years of problems in one year, but we are turning this ship around,” Allen said.

Chaderjian, which houses 600 males, is one of two youth prisons with offenders who tend to be older, are often affiliated with gangs and are serving long sentences for violent crimes. By law, all inmates -- except those who commit crimes in custody -- must be released by age 25.

The facility became notorious last year after the national broadcast of a videotaped fight involving two inmates and two correctional counselors, who were seen punching the youths as they lay face-down. Six staff members were fired for using unnecessary force or filing misleading reports about the incident, but they are fighting to regain their jobs.

The audit found serious deficiencies in four major areas -- education, treatment, security and mental health care. Among the findings:

* Youth correctional counselors reported spending about 10% of their time on counseling. The rest of their time is consumed by security tasks, such as supervising showers or meals or working in the control tower.

* Even when provided, counseling is of questionable quality. No degree in counseling is required, and all 26 counselors interviewed by auditors said they had little or no formal training.

* With certain disciplinary sanctions phased out, staff members believe that they have few options to use with inmates who misbehave. There were 24 assaults on staff in 2004, up from 12 in 2003.

* Frequently, there is no treatment plan for inmates on anti-psychotic medications and no follow-up testing.