CYA Inmates Conceived 8 Children Since ’87 : Prison pregnancies: Youth Authority says issuing contraceptives at co-educational Ventura School would mean condoning sexual activity. Critics call that policy unrealistic.

Their jailers forbid intimacy beyond hand-holding, but male and female prisoners of the California Youth Authority’s Ventura School have nevertheless paired off to conceive eight children in state custody since March, 1987, records show. The eighth baby is due in November.

The Camarillo compound, which houses virtually all of the state’s incarcerated female youth offenders, is the California Youth Authority’s only co-educational facility. National authorities say it also is apparently the only youth facility in the United States where prisoners regularly get pregnant.

“Every time it happens, I’m amazed,” said Terry Cole, an obstetrician-gynecologist who has been making monthly visits there since 1981. “You would think that the authorities out there would have it figured out. But obviously, where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

Many outside specialists say major reforms are needed to solve the problem, and some decry the Youth Authority’s refusal to distribute birth control devices as unrealistic. But Youth Authority officials discount the severity of the situation and say that aside from revised security procedures and possible new courses in sexuality and self-esteem, they expect to leave the institution largely as is.

The Camarillo facility sits on a grassy plain and houses 610 male and 250 female prisoners, who sleep in separate buildings but gather together for classes and counseling under the scrutiny of 450 staffers and a network of video monitors.

The CYA’s prisoners in Camarillo are guilty of offenses from misdemeanors to murder, with robbery the most common offense. Although their average age is 19, more than 100 prisoners there have been convicted of homicide. A 1987 survey found that 18% of the CYA’s incoming female prisoners had given birth at least once.

If an inmate 18 or older conceives a child while incarcerated, the Youth Authority recommends to the parole board that the prisoner’s sentence be extended, said Kate Thompson, the facility’s acting superintendent. Those extensions, Thompson said, often last six months to a year.

If the prisoner is under 18, Thompson said, “we refer that to law enforcement” and parents are notified. In two of the eight recent cases, Thompson said, the mothers were minors.

Usually, arrangements are made for the prisoners’ families to take over the infants, Youth Authority officials said. Others are put up for adoption. Abortions are available, officials said, but seldom chosen.

Contraceptives are not available at the facility, nor are birth control pills, except to female prisoners complaining of irregular periods and those expecting to leave within three months.

“Otherwise, it would be an act of condoning their sexual activity in the facility,” Thompson said.

For critics of the Youth Authority, the pregnancies and absence of contraception raise a red flag--one that could signal an AIDS threat or a prisoner lawsuit, and one that sets the institution apart from others around the country.

“The CYA can’t have it both ways. If they’re going to mix boys and girls, they’re going to have to provide more education, and birth control,” said Ellen Barry, director of Legal Services for Prisoners With Children, a San Francisco-based legal advocacy group.

“These kids are sexually active,” said Pat Marrone, who directs Allied Fellowship, an Oakland-based halfway house that takes some pregnant CYA prisoners. “It’s not only that we need to prevent them from getting pregnant. We need to prevent the spread of AIDS.”

No AIDS cases have been reported among CYA prisoners in Camarillo. But critics say state officials are inviting trouble, given the facility’s many prisoners with histories of substance abuse or promiscuity, or both, and the lack of condoms.

“They can’t adequately supervise the kids, so not to give them birth control is such a head-in-the-sand decision,” said Elizabeth Jameson, staff attorney for the Youth Law Center, a San Francisco advocacy group. Jameson added that, although she knew of no such cases so far, the pregnancies among minors could leave the state vulnerable to accusations of negligence and possible litigation by prisoners’ families.

“I was supposed to be getting interviewed for a play,” said Piper Moore, 20, who conceived four months ago while in custody and is still a CYA prisoner. “The staff wasn’t paying attention, so we just did it. . . . What do they expect?”

Some of the pregnancies are premeditated, Moore said. “They want to get pregnant. They’re young, and they got a lot of time, and they want to be pregnant.”

For officials at other juvenile institutions around the country, Camarillo’s reality is an unfamiliar problem complicated by rare circumstances.

In New York, Washington, Idaho and Texas, where state facilities house youth offenders in co-educational populations of 100 to 300, authorities said they could recall no reports of prisoners impregnating other prisoners.

Officials at the American Correctional Assn. in Maryland said the same. John Zachariah, juvenile projects coordinator for the American Correctional Assn., called the Camarillo facility’s size “a thing of the past,” noting that it holds three or four times as many prisoners as many comparable institutions.

“Today,” he said, “you will find very few institutions with more than 200 capacity. It’s better for kids and it’s better for management.”

On their list of possible reforms, Thompson and her staff have included sex education classes, which Thompson said have not been offered for several years, if ever; a tighter system of passes for prisoners; separation of boys and girls in choir classes and other leisure activities; a more rigidly structured academic schedule; staff training sessions to improve security; new locks for all doors; and self-esteem counseling for female prisoners.

On June 28 and 29, the state Commission of Juvenile Justice, Crime and Delinquency made its annual inspection of the Ventura School. The group’s findings are not expected to be released for several weeks, but Commissioner Donna Clontz, who lives in Ventura County, said she did not expect the pregnancy figures to surprise commissioners.

Given the facility’s population, she suggested, a record of just eight pregnancies in three years among 250 females may be “a good sign that everybody’s doing what they’re supposed to be doing.”