Lawmakers Put Pressure on New CYA Chief

Two state senators said Sunday that the new director of the California Youth Authority could be ousted unless he moves quickly to end brutality by guards and other misconduct uncovered in an investigation by the state’s inspector general.

A longtime legislative watchdog over the youth authority said that even before the investigation revealed a pattern of abuse at a facility in Chino, lawmakers believed that the agency was in trouble.

Sen. Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley) said she previously had asked that hearings on Gov. Gray Davis’ nomination of Gregorio S. Zermeno as director of the agency be held up and she had no trouble getting Democrats, who hold a majority in the Senate, to postpone them until early next year.

Sen. Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles), chairman of the Joint Committee on Prison Construction and Operations, would not predict whether Zermeno will win confirmation from the Senate.

Polanco said Zermeno “has a year to clean up the mess, the problems under his direct responsibility, and I strongly urge that he do that because that will be the basis for determining his future.” Wright said that “a clean sweep” of the authority’s leadership is needed and that the results of the investigation, revealed in The Times on Sunday, may doom Zermeno’s confirmation.

The state Senate has a year in which to confirm gubernatorial nominees, but during that time the appointee serves in the job. Davis appointed Zermeno in March. “This doesn’t help him one bit,” Wright said, citing the disclosure that the state’s inspector general had found a widespread pattern of abuse and brutality stretching back more than two years at the CYA facility in Chino.

Wright said she hoped the inspector general’s probe--initiated by Davis--is an indication that the governor is willing to take the nearly 60-year-old agency set up to rehabilitate troubled youths in a new direction.

Also citing state investigations that uncovered charges of sexual misconduct at the agency’s Ventura School in Camarillo, Wright said young people “are put into confinement and they turn around and get . . . mistreated inside.”

One high-ranking administrator has already been moved out of the agency in part because of the inspector general’s findings, a Davis administration official said.

Asked about Zermeno’s status, Michael Bustamante, the governor’s press secretary, said: “As more information becomes available through the investigation of the inspector general, I think a lot of people, including the governor, will be in a much better position to see who should be held accountable for this . . . it may fall smack in [Zermeno’s] lap.”

Zermeno, a longtime youth authority employee who worked his way up the ranks, was tabbed for the $105,883-a-year job after most recently serving as the superintendent of the DeWitt Nelson Correctional Facility.

He could not be reached for comment Sunday. After his appointment, Zermeno discussed how he would instill faith in his agency.

In an interview, he said the agency’s top goal “is to provide a safe and constructive environment . . . and then you provide services to each individual to ensure that the guy is a little better off when he leaves than when he came in.”

Agents from the inspector general’s office found a disturbing pattern of problems at the authority’s Chino facility involving the administration of a wide range of punishments that are outside normal policies, said a Davis administration official familiar with the findings.

In particular, they highlighted a program in which inmates, often rival gang members, were pitted against each other to see if they could get along in the institution’s general population. Inmates would be put into the same room for up to 15 minutes to talk or watch TV, but at least one-quarter of the time, fights would erupt in what was called “Friday night fights,” the Davis administration official said.

The investigation into allegations of improper conduct at Chino is continuing and is likely to spread to other youth authority facilities.

In response to the findings, Davis ordered Robert Presley, secretary of the Youth and Adult Correctional Agency, to examine the youth authority’s policy on when it uses force, immediately prohibited “the Friday night fights” and said all inmate grievances must be investigated.