End of VisionQuest Contract Urged : County Agencies Cite Juvenile Program’s Poor Success Rate

The San Diego County Probation Department and Department of Social Services have asked that the Board of Supervisors sever the county’s ties to VisionQuest, a controversial juvenile reform program.

Referring to an “accumulation of cited concerns and lack of significant success history” involving the Arizona-based organization, Social Services Director Randall Bacon urged that VisionQuest’s annual $2-million contract, due to expire June 30, be extended two months and then terminated.

There are about 32 juvenile offenders from San Diego County in the program.

“A short-term extension will permit the graduation of these existing placements to their own home or alternative care,” Bacon stated in a written, four-page recommendation endorsed by Cecil H. Steppe, the county’s chief probation officer. “Upon expiration of this extension, VisionQuest will no longer be used for placement of San Diego County wards.”

The recommendation was sent to the Board of Supervisors late last week, but not made public until Tuesday. The supervisors are expected to discuss the issue next Tuesday.

Supervisors Brian Bilbray, Paul Eckert and Susan Golding said Tuesday that they were not immediately influenced by the urgings of Steppe and Bacon. John Woodard, an aide to Supervisor George Bailey, said that Bailey shared Bilbray’s and Eckert’s position. Supervisor Leon Williams could not be reached for comment.

“I think we have to check it out very thoroughly to make certain the program is doing what it’s purported to do and what we want to accomplish in a cost-effective way,” Eckert said. “If it meets those two, I won’t need to make any changes.”

Eckert added that he had received 25 to 30 telephone calls from parents whose children have been sent to VisionQuest. All of the parents, Eckert said, “swear by it.”

Eckert and the others also said that they are awaiting a study of VisionQuest by the Rand Corp., a Santa Monica-based think tank that in 1982 prepared another report that generally endorsed the organization. This most recent report is expected to be released in early July.

VisionQuest officials had little comment on the Bacon-Steppe letter.

“The (county) grand jury said to take the San Diego kids out immediately and now this recommendation apparently says they should stay with VisionQuest for another 60 days; it sounds at least like we’re moving in the right direction,” joked VisionQuest’s administrative director, Mike Cracovaner, contacted in Tucson. “Our first concern is and always has been the children we’re working with from San Diego . . . We’re going to continue working with kids every day.”

The recommendation by probation and social service officials is the latest in a string of criticisms leveled at VisionQuest by local agencies ostensibly concerned about the welfare of San Diego County youths committed to the program.

Last week, the San Diego chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union accused VisionQuest of widespread “excesses, shortcomings and intransigence,” and demanded that all local youths be withdrawn. In May, the San Diego County Grand Jury made a similar recommendation.

Founded in 1973, the privately run, profit-making VisionQuest accepts hard-core delinquents who would otherwise be committed to traditional penal systems such as the California Youth Authority (CYA). VisionQuest’s rehabilitation program emphasizes challenging outdoor activity and offers what some regard as harsh discipline to reform wayward youth. The program is perhaps best known for its cross-country wagon train treks.

In August, 1981, San Diego County became one of a handful of agencies to send teen-agers to VisionQuest. At one time, more than 100 area youths were involved in the program.

“From the beginning, the Probation Department experienced difficulties in providing required supervision in the program’s numerous remote settings,” according to the Bacon-Steppe letter. “Lack of formal regulation or licensing oversight for some VisionQuest program components has been an ongoing concern.”

Local criticism of San Diego County’s involvement in the program intensified following the April, 1984, death of a 16-year-old San Diego youth, Mario Cano, at a VisionQuest camp near Silver City, N.M. Other incidents of child abuse were subsequently alleged.

After a federal grand jury in San Diego last year initiated a probe of VisionQuest, the San Diego County Juvenile Court in October stopped sending local youth offenders to the program.

The federal grand jury reportedly is continuing its review of VisionQuest, while the organization continues to care for a total of about 560 youths from Arizona, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, San Diego County and California’s Alameda County.

Steppe and Bacon also described VisionQuest as “one of the more expensive programs” to reform wayward youths. VisionQuest charges the county $2,707 a month for each teen-ager sent to the program--approximately 25% more than an offender spending a year in a county institution.