CA: State to Detail Reform of CYA - Therapy and education replace punitive culture

SACRAMENTO — The Schwarzenegger administration is poised to profoundly transform how California treats its most troubled young lawbreakers, replacing a prison culture of punishment and control with one anchored in group therapy, self-discipline and preparation for life outside.

Under the new approach, outlined in court documents to be filed today, inmates in the California Youth Authority — now idle or locked down much of the time — would follow an intensive schedule of counseling, education and vocational training designed to consume nearly every waking hour.

Living units, now marked by violence and crowded with up to 75 youths, would house half that number. Every offender would be teamed with a counselor who would follow the youth's progress — and, when needed, impose sanctions or rewards — throughout the sentence.

Efforts to reform the California Youth Authority have sputtered for years, the victim of political indifference and disagreement over what constitutes a successful formula for managing wayward youths.

With eight prisons and two camps, the CYA was founded in 1941 after activists protested the housing of young troublemakers alongside hardened criminals in the state's adult lockups.

For decades, the agency took a paternalistic approach. Inmates — called wards — took field trips to movies and the beach. They lived in "cottages" and were supervised by counselors in civilian clothes.

But while a number of its 3,300 wards ages 12 to 25 still live in those open dorms, little else about the CYA of 2005 resembles the agency of old. The growth of gangs has added a violent component to life inside, and the Youth Authority now houses the toughest of the state's offenders, spending $71,000 a year to house each male and $140,000 on each female.

Good grief. The people making the recommendations are clueless.

"Until recently, some were confined in large metal cages for certain purposes."

The cage wasn't installed to punish the person in the cage or even to restrain him.

What was the cage's purpose? Education. It was installed so that an at risk ward could continue his education in a classroom envirnment. The cage was mounted in the middle of a classroom to PROTECT the person inside from attack by rival gang members who would, if they could, kill him! Without the cage, the ward had to be instructed in his cell by a teacher one-on-one instead of in a classroom.

The inmates at the CYA are the juvenile criminals the counties DO NOT WANT. The easy ones, they keep; the tough ones they send to CYA.

These CYA "wards" are not angels. Many are sociopaths, some are psychopaths, most are learning handicapped, some are retarded, ALL of them are gang-bangers (if they weren't before being sent to CYA, they will be soon), some are mentally ill, and others certifiably insane. Some of them are monsters.

Where are they going to get the educational staff to teach the CYA inmates?

The average age of CYA teachers is now over 55. They work 30% longer work years for 20% less pay than teachers in schools outside.

The GUARDS, with a high-school education, receive 40% more pay than CYA teachers with Masters degrees! The GUARDS get "danger" retirement because they have to work with these "children": the teachers don't... even though they are alone with them in the classroom for up to six hours a day.

There are teacher openings in every facility the state cannot fill because no teacher wants to work in the conditions for the pay provided. They can get better pay, shorter hours, less danger, longer vacations (like 3 months), and more respect in the public school system.

Why would a teacher want to take a job teaching psychotic rapists and murderers where they are outnumber 10 to 1 in closed classrooms without aides or guards? Why would they want to be called a "Motherf**king b*tch" for attempting to discipline students and have to make sure you don't turn your back on one who has threatened to kill you? Why would they take a job where they have to inventory the pencils after every class session to make sure that one won't wind up sticking through the ribs of one of the wards... or worse, a staff member? Why would they want to take a job where they sit down at the computer and find that a ward has stripped out every part that could be made into a weapon? What teacher really wants to have a new student come up to her desk and whip out his male organ and proudly lay it on the desk? How would they handle a ward coming out of the classroom restroom and flinging a papercup filled with urine around the room?

The teachers of CYA will be picketing for a safer classroom environment on Tuesday, May 17th.

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