Conflicting Role of School, Prison Takes Toll

The deceptively named Ventura School is a razor-wired prison for baby-faced murderers, rapists, robbers and thugs.

But it is something else, too, an educational institution where 732 teenage boys and girls, young men and women, are living out the last years of their youth. Where 400 teachers, counselors, doctors, ministers, cooks, mechanics and guards try to balance the conflicting demands of a prison and school.

“It is a unique world,” said Assistant Supt. Chuck Kubasek, 52. “We have the responsibility of keeping a group of very insecure and very violent young people confined here safe and sound. And on top of that, teaching them what it takes to be positive citizens when they get paroled.”

Teachers are supposed to lead by example, but to never, ever get too close to the young people in their custody and care. Yet at least eight male employees of the California Youth Authority prison are now suspected of abandoning their roles as caretakers and becoming criminals themselves, through sexual misconduct with their teenage wards.

A former vocational teacher was arrested 12 days ago on charges of having oral sex with two female inmates, both 17. State investigators say they have sent cases against seven more employees to Ventura County prosecutors and may refer two more soon. All result from incidents that allegedly took place between 1996 and 1998.

So far, nine employees have been fired or forced out because of the intense inquiry now underway by a task force of investigators brought in by the youth authority last April, authorities said. One more employee was fired last month amid allegations that he forced female inmates to model underwear in his office.

“The heart of the problem is that people have not been able to distinguish between their role as a professional and as somebody who just wants to be nice and help somebody else,” Kubasek said. “Then it goes too far.”

Employees and female inmates agree that staff must walk a narrow line in an institution occupied by streetwise criminals who are both defenseless and manipulative.

Female inmates tend to see wards who have sex with employees not only as victims but also as realists who spend the only currency they have left--their sexuality--to obtain gifts or favors in class. Sometimes they just want companionship.

“A lot of girls agree to do this stuff, messing with the staff, because they get things they can no longer receive in here,” said Jane Martin, 20, a convicted murderer from North Hollywood. “But I believe anywhere you go in life there’s going to be molesters and drug people. The same as here.”

LaVona Jones, 19, a convicted robber, said she knows girls who say they have been sexually involved with employees. “They said basically that they couldn’t understand how somebody could do that to them. They were like a victim. But in this place it’s hard to believe everything you hear.”

Teacher Ronetta McLean-Smith said instructors are always on the defensive against fabricated complaints.

“We go through many steps to make sure we’re not left alone with a ward,” she said, “because we don’t want allegations made that aren’t true.”

A former Ventura School teacher, who asked not to be identified because of the circumstances of his resignation, said he could never reconcile the contradictory functions of confinement and education.

“It’s an environment of paranoia and fear for the employees and the wards,” he said. “It’s difficult to have a nurturing school environment in an oppressive facility like a prison. These two things are nearly incompatible. On one hand you’re trying to be a friend and a teacher, and on the other hand you’re a custodian of dangerous felons.”

But Kubasek said employees are paid top dollar to come to Ventura School, and they know what they are in for. If the stress is too great, they should seek counseling or leave, he said.

“You’re not teaching at Oxnard High School,” Kubasek said. “You’re teaching youths who are violent, streetwise and sophisticated. They know how to manipulate people. Probably the simplest characteristic is that most of these wards believe in getting over on somebody else before they get over on you.”

Former School for Wayward Girls

Founded in 1914 in the Avenue area of Ventura as a school for wayward girls, Ventura School moved to its current 100-acre campus of low-slung red brick buildings in 1962.

It became a coed institution in 1970 to save money and remains today the only male-female facility among the 15 prisons run by the California Youth Authority. Its 415 male inmates are 19 on average, while its 317 female wards are 17 on average.

About 65% of the males and 75% of the females are in prison for violent crimes. More than 50 of the inmates are convicted murderers, Kubasek said.

In general, the female inmates are considered more dangerous and less stable, he said. That is because all of California’s worst female criminals who are convicted as juveniles are sent there. Some are mentally unstable but do not qualify for placement in mental institutions. Several have mutilated themselves repeatedly, authorities said.

The behavior of the male inmates is better, Kubasek said, because they know that if they are a problem they can be transferred quickly to prisons for hardened youth criminals in Chico and Stockton. That happens two or three times a month.

“Order is absolutely necessary, and we insist on it,” Kubasek said.

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Indeed, a tour of Ventura School last week revealed an orderly, spotless facility where uniformed male and female inmates--now completely separated--moved silently in rows from housing units to classrooms and back again.

Officials say that, despite past problems, the Ventura School runs well and is showing measurable signs of improvement.

“You’ve got to look at the total picture,” said youth authority Director Francisco Alarcon.

For example, he said, the rate of Ventura School’s female inmates who commit new crimes within two years of release was a record low 25% in 1997 and dropped to 20% in 1998. The recidivism of school males was at a 20-year low of 49%, he said.

Graduations are up too, Alarcon said, with 100 inmates receiving high school diplomas at a recent ceremony.

Ventura School also recently became the first youth authority facility accredited by an association that sets nationwide standards for juvenile prisons.

“All I’m asking for is a balanced view of what’s going on at that facility,” Alarcon said. “We could focus all day on the 5% of things that need to be corrected, but we also need to focus on the 95% that we do right out there.”

Ventura School has received wide attention for years for some of its educational and job-training programs.

After the youth authority adopted a program allowing businesses to set up shop at juvenile prisons, Ventura School brought in TWA, which for 13 years paid up to 70 inmates at least minimum wage to take airline reservations by phone.

The program received a setback a few years ago, when an inmate took customers’ credit card numbers with him and used them after he was released. He was convicted of fraud and imprisoned. But TWA stayed on at Ventura School, leaving last fall for business reasons.

Work Program Was Successful

Locally, Gold Coast RV Products in Oxnard hired about 25 inmates to sew accessories for recreational vehicles and pack them for shipment. The floods of December 1997 ruined the prison workshop and forced Gold Coast to relocate.

“It was a very successful program,” said Gold Coast spokeswoman Suzanne Ludington. “It helped us as far as productivity. They were great workers. We hired them as normal employees, gave them evaluations and raises. We have inmates that have gotten jobs at normal companies.”

In addition to work experience, inmates earned $500 to $600 a month. Just 20% of the money went directly to the inmates for use at the prison canteen. The rest went to pay room and board, victim restitution and mandatory savings they could have once free.

Ventura School also made headlines because of the innovative videotaping classes of teacher Bradley Gardner. He set up a cable television network within the school, filmed inmate plays and made the prison grounds his studio.

But Gardner, 42, of Camarillo resigned 10 months ago and was arrested Jan. 27 after prosecutors charged him with four counts of oral copulation with two students who were minors when the acts allegedly took place between 1996 and 1998. He is now awaiting trial.

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Gardner’s case illustrates how a teacher admired by students and colleagues alike may have succumbed to the temptations of life as a prison instructor.

“This whole thing is making me out to be a really bad person, and I’m not,” Gardner said in an interview last week. “I wanted to help young people get away from lives of crime and realize that there’s hope and there’s a future. And I know I did a lot of good.”

Several current and former inmates agreed.

“He was a nice guy and never came on to me,” inmate Martin said.

A former inmate, released in 1993 and now employed in Camarillo, said Gardner was the best teacher she had ever had.

“I was in Brad’s video and media production class, and I’m shocked,” she said. “He was a great teacher, very patient and very willing to help us become something once we got out. For me, Brad was like a safe haven where you could get away from the rest of the staff and security [guards]. He really believed in rehabilitation more than anyone at that institution.”

Several Ventura School teachers and guards said in interviews, however, that Gardner--if guilty--is not representative of school employees.

“I’ve been here for three years, and I’ve never seen anyone act inappropriately,” said special education teacher Mary Porter.

Counselor Daryl Lee, head of the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn.’s local at the school, said wrongdoing has been exaggerated far out of proportion.

“It’s like every staff member is in a brothel out here,” Lee said. “It’s painted like we’re molesting children, and it’s not true.”

Guard Andy Gibson, 38, an 11-year veteran of the school, said problems are not widespread.

“You’ve got a few people who are choosing to violate policies, I guess, but everybody else is pretty legit,” he said. “There were a few incidents, but now the accountability is tighter.”

State Investigators Launched Inquiry

The fixes began in April, officials say.

That is when eight investigators arrived from Sacramento to conduct an independent inquiry of a single incident of employee sexual misconduct with an inmate. The inquiry snowballed into seven more criminal cases, including the one against Gardner.

State Sen. Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley)--whose district includes Ventura School and whose complaints prompted the hiring of the outside investigators--said it’s about time.

She said she has a copy of an internal complaint filed against Gardner in 1997 by an employee concerned about his alleged misconduct. “This should have been stopped in 1997,” she said.

Kubasek said he knows nothing of such a complaint.

But a longtime female employee, who requested anonymity because she fears retaliation, said Gardner’s allegedly improper involvement with his students was common knowledge.

“It wasn’t just him,” she said. “I’ve seen or heard of male staff still working here who were having relationships with wards, and it was covered up.”

The female employee said that complaints are sometimes ignored and that those who file them are sometimes the ones who are disciplined. “It’s happened to me, and I know several other people it’s happened to,” she said.

Because of such complaints, Wright said she requested in September a separate investigation by the state Inspector General’s Office. A report on its probe of sexual harassment and mismanagement is expected this month.

In fact, Wright said, she has stopped cooperating with the youth authority’s internal investigations to protect the women who come to her for help.

“I stopped, because every time I mentioned a name [of a victim] that person suddenly wasn’t fit to continue employment,” she said. “Now they say everything’s better. But I think I’ll go with the inspector general’s report on that.”