Youth Prisons Fail Our Society

By Nicole Lee

The images of prison abuse that we've seen from Iraq, while horrifying, should come with little surprise in light of the horrendous conditions that exist in prisons right here in the U.S. Millions of people recently saw a security video of guards viciously beating two young wards at a California Youth Authority (CYA) facility in Stockton. In the video, one guard punches a boy in the face 28 separate times, as the boy lays helpless on the floor, offering no resistance. Then other guards come and spray the boys with chemical weapons. The release of this video shocked Californians of every stripe, but what's more shocking is that this kind of violence is commonplace in CYA facilities.

The California Youth Authority is a system of 10 youth prisons – the largest system of its kind in the country, currently warehousing about 4,300 young people. CYA is the last stop on the juvenile justice system train. Counties send youth to the CYA if the youth have failed out of local programs, or if the counties don't have the capacity, financial or otherwise, to deal with the youth locally. The majority of youth who are in CYA facilities have been failed time and time again by the educational system, social services, and the juvenile justice system by the time they reach CYA. This is particularly disappointing when you consider that the mandate of California's juvenile justice system is not to punish youth, but to rehabilitate them.  

The April 1, 2003 release of the “Rodney King”-style beating caught on tape in the CYA came shortly after two other firestorms of controversy for the youth prison system. On January 19, two cellmates, Deon Whitfield and Durrell Feaster, were found hung in their cell in a facility in Ione, California. Then in early February, Senator Gloria Romero (D – Los Angeles) released to the media a series of five expert reports that revealed horrific conditions in CYA facilities.  

The reports outlined rampant abuse and neglect in the CYA. According to experts in the field, guards regularly instigate fights among the youth. They commonly spray wards with chemical weapons and high-pressure hoses. The facilities are filthy; some have blood and feces smeared on the walls. Wards' emergency medical and mental health needs are neglected. Staff and administrators needlessly lock minors in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day – for months on end. Some youth were being locked in tiny, one-person cages, like dog cages, for the purposes of education and recreation. Others were forced to spend hours on their knees with their hands bound behind their backs.  

In talking to family members of CYA wards and young people who have been recently released from the CYA, we've heard about even more abuses. We've heard stories of parents not being notified when their child had been assaulted or attempted suicide. And youth refer to the CYA as “gladiator school,” meaning that kids come out of the CYA worse off then when they went in. One former ward said that when he went in to the CYA he knew nothing about gangs, but that the staff of the facility labeled him and placed him in a gang inside the facility. When he was released he could name every gang in the state of California.

The last study done reported that the CYA had a 91% recidivism rate – meaning that 91% of youth coming out of the CYA would be rearrested and end up back in the system within 3 years of their release. In this time of massive education cuts, if a school had a 91% failure rate the school would be shut down. But the CYA continues to operate.

The last study done reported that the CYA had a 91% recidivism rate – meaning that 91% of youth coming out of the CYA would be rearrested and end up back in the system within 3 years of their release. In this time of massive education cuts, if a school had a 91% failure rate the school would be shut down. But the CYA continues to operate.   

While all of this paints a dismal picture for the future of youth in California, there has got to be a better way. California has an obligation to forge a new path – one that steers away from abuse and neglect and heads toward real reform and real rehabilitation.  

First, California counties need to remove youth from the CYA who don't need to be there. Dr. Barry Krisberg, author of one of the recent expert reports on the CYA, estimated in a recent interview that more than half of the youth currently in the CYA do not need such a high level of secure detention. These kids could be placed elsewhere immediately. Most of them are in the CYA in large part due to inadequate legal representation. County probation departments and judges should immediately reconsider placement for all CYA youth for whom a more rehabilitative option is viable and available.

Second, the state needs to dramatically boost funding for community-based alternative programs. Counties need help developing and supporting programs that keep youth in their communities, near their families. Many counties don't have any effective rehabilitative programming, leaving the CYA as the only option.

Finally, California should replace the CYA's ten massive youth prisons with small (no larger than 50 bed) regional rehabilitation centers. Right now, the CYA uses “training schools” – large, remote, high-security prison facilities more akin to warehouses than schools. For decades, experts and officials have dismissed this model as incapable of meeting the juvenile justice system's goal of rehabilitation.

In rehabilitation centers, youth would be under the supervision of trained social workers and mental health experts – not prison guards. Such centers could keep youth closer to their families and provide them with an array of effective services. This model has been tested and it works. The state of Missouri replaced its youth prison with small-scale, regional, residential programs run by youth advocates. No facility has more than 40 beds. Youth receive intensive counseling, educational assistance, therapy, and job training – all for what California spends, per youth, on the CYA. There are no cages, no chemical weapons, and little violence. The result? Missouri's juvenile justice system boasts a 92% success rate, as opposed to CYA's 91% failure rate.

If a parent beat their child, neglected their child, and then locked that child in a closet for 23 hours a day, that parent would be in jail. The CYA does this to young people every day and calls it rehabilitation.

If a parent beat their child, neglected their child, and then locked that child in a closet for 23 hours a day, that parent would be in jail. The CYA does this to young people every day and calls it rehabilitation. As people of faith we believe that a society should be judged by the least of its members. We have a choice in California about the kind of priorities that we are setting as a state. Young people cannot continue to be scapegoated and targeted for the failures of our society as a whole. While there have been massive cuts in education, healthcare, and social services, prison spending in California has increased. We have an obligation to knock down a juvenile justice system that is based on fear and hatred, and to create a system that has at it center love and compassion.

Nicole Lee is a fourth-generation Chinese American and a native of Oakland, Calif., who still lives in her home community. She is a member of Our Saviour Episcopal Church in Oakland's Chinatown neighborhood. She served as a co-chair for the Episcopal Asiamerica Ministries youth & young adult network from 1995-1998. Nicole has a background in union organizing, and is currently the lead organizer for Books Not Bars – a project of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, which campaigns for juvenile justice system reform in California. She may be reached by email at nicole@ellabakercenter.org .