CALIFORNIA: BUILDING CHANGE
CYA Conference Looks at Approach
Offering Therapy, Education
Highly-publicized violence and suicides in the
California Youth Authority have resulted in lawsuits, legislative
hearings and now reform efforts. Now several experts are offering an
alternative.
Those attending a daylong conference on juvenile
justice reform in Sacramento on Tuesday heard about a different approach
with promising results for young offenders.
The CYA officials, parole workers and others who work
with juvenile offenders were briefed on how Missouri, Massachusetts, and
Pennsylvania have had success with an approach that puts small groups of
wards in a home-like setting, then provides in-depth counseling.
Dr. Jerry Miller, a former director of youth
corrections in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, said the new system
offers better results and lower recidivism, yet costs no more than
conventional incarceration. "We were able to get the money and resources
to the kids that were being sopped up in these large institutions that
are really designed to create crime," he said.
Miller explained that California currently spends
$72,000 annually for each CYA ward, enough to easily fund the new
program. "You need the flexibility to move money around," he said.
"Think of the $72,000 you have in hand the minute the kid is sent away
for a year. What would you do with it if it were your kid and he were in
trouble? You would not do what California is doing."
Miller told how he closed 10 large state institutions
and replaced them with smaller group settings, a project that required
reorientation and retraining of workers. "We retrained staff that were
in the institution and put them in the community," he said. "They became
halfway between a parole agent and a social worker in the community.
None of them had to deal with more than five or six kids in that role."
Former CYA ward Jason Treas underscored Miller's
remarks, saying California's current system of juvenile justice gives
wards little in the way of rehabilitation. "The system never provided me
nothing," he said
He said the only thing wards learn in California's
juvenile institutions is how to commit crimes. "You put him in a
environment where violence is condoned, where it's promoted, it's
inspired, it's fostered, then he's going to become a product of that
environment," said Treas.
Crime victim advocates are unenthusiastic about the
new approach, saying that violent offenders should be punished when they
commit horrific crimes. "Especially with the violent crimes," said
Maggie Elvey of Crime Victims United. "Somebody trying to rehabilitate
the murderer, give him books and set him loose. [Meanwhile] our lives
have been ruined forever."
As part of a legal settlement, the CYA must have
formulated the final part of its reform plan, which deals with ward
safety and welfare remediation, by November 30.
California houses 3,450 wards in its juvenile
institutions. Another 248 are at fire camps and 3,755 are on parole.
Figures show about 70 percent of CYA wards re-offend after they are
released.
C. Johnson
21 September 2005
http://www.news10.net/storyfull2.aspx?storyid=13206
