Local News in Brief : Community-Based CYA Centers Urged

Overcrowding in California Youth Authority institutions should be eased by funding diversified community-based centers rather than building additional high-security training schools and camps, a nonprofit health research group contended Monday in a presentation to the Los Angeles Children’s Commission.

“California is doing little more than warehousing young people,” said Barbara Bloom of the Commonweal Research Institute, a Marin County-based organization engaged in an eight-year study of the CYA.

The CYA houses almost 9,000 inmates in facilities built for fewer than 6,000, and the state plans to construct four new 600-bed institutions to cope with the shortage.