The California Youth Authority system is embroiled in a
circus-like atmosphere involving guard misconduct accusations and
investigations. San Benito County Sheriff Curtis Hill sat in the
center ring last week at the California Performance Review in
Sacramento to discuss changes and improvements within the
system.
The California Youth Authority system is embroiled in a circus-like atmosphere involving guard misconduct accusations and investigations. San Benito County Sheriff Curtis Hill sat in the center ring last week at the California Performance Review in Sacramento to discuss changes and improvements within the system.
Hill, who was in attendance representing the California State Sheriff’s Association, sat in on a subcommittee that discussed at length and in detail juvenile justice reform.
The CYA has been in the media spotlight for several weeks concerning brutal treatment by guards toward wards, or juvenile inmates.
The San Jose Mercury News has published several stories and editorials over the past couple of months about a videotape of guards brutally beating two young wards in a CYA facility in Stockton, along with criminal investigations pursued by Gov. Schwarzenegger’s administration concerning other CYA issues.
“What we’ve been reading in the Mercury is essentially accurate,” Hill said. “However, the new director, Walt Allen, is committed to really changing the youth authority. There’s no question about it.”
Sending juveniles to youth authority facilities is very rare in San Benito County, said Chief Probation Officer Deborah Botts.
Currently only three county residents reside within the youth authority – one in the O.H. Close Youth Correctional Facility in Stockton, two at the Preston facility and a fourth juvenile is already out on parole, Botts said.
“We rarely send kids to the youth authority unless they’ve exhausted all local efforts,” Botts said. “We take it really seriously.”
Even with all of the controversy and horrific charges being brought against guards at the CYA, what most people don’t understand is that the majority of the youth authority’s population is the “worst of the worst,” Hill said.
These felons are being detained in accommodations that haven’t been updated in up to 50 years, and in the past, legislators have been noncommittal to making changes within the system, he said.
“These kids are being housed in facilities designed for a whole different era,” Hill said. “The philosophy these past few days has been to get folks in a room, shut the door and work it until we get some good proposals for the governor to take to the Legislature and the people of the state.”
While the system has its problems, doing away with it entirely and looking at other alternatives is not an option in Hill’s opinion.
Orienting the youth authority into a more integral part of the juvenile justice process and at the same time being able to integrate the wards into the appropriate rehabilitation programs necessary for them is the goal, he said.
“If the youth authority is done away with, everything would remain local,” he said. “San Benito County Juvenile Hall is unable to house a mentally ill, sexually violent, murdering juvenile. And they’re out there. It’s a big role for the state to continue to have it.”
While Hill concedes that much of the bad press the youth authority is receiving is factual, to a certain extent the public’s perception of juvenile offenders is a misnomer.
Harboring the belief that the wards still have the ability to turn their lives around with the appropriate direction and assistance is a nice philosophy to have, but many of these juveniles are, to a certain extent, solidified habitual offenders, he said.
“Many of them are hardened criminals with mental health issues,” he said. “The (public’s) conflict is separating reality from our perception of juveniles.”
Actively partaking in the Performance Review enables Hill to better lobby for small counties on a state level, and then accurately provide the county administrator and Board of Supervisors with pertinent information regarding state issues.
“We’re being proactive with the intent of delivering a better product to San Benito County,” he said. “We’re all over it.”
Hill will travel back to Sacramento on Thursday to continue discussions with the Performance Review on issues strictly relating to juvenile justice. The committees and subcommittees’ recommendations will be given to the governor to use when lobbying for juvenile justice reforms legislatively.
The first preliminary report from the Performance Review will be delivered to the governor April 8.
