Unlocking the System

Four young people died in California’s youth prisons last year, including Durrell Feaster, 18, and Deon Whitfield, 17, both of whom committed suicide by hanging themselves with bedsheets. In April of 2004, the release of a “Rodney-King-style” security video that showed prison staff restraining and viciously beating youth — punching one 28 times in the face — and later spraying them with chemicals, made national news. Since then, young men and women have also filed suit for sexual assault by prison staff.

To the young people locked up in the CYA and their families on the outside, these stories are nothing new. Families and communities impacted by the juvenile justice system have long been organizing to expose these systemic abuses. Groups such as Books Not Bars and the youth-led Let’s Get Free of Oakland, Calif. held candlelight vigils for Durrell and Deon, hosted community forums and were involved in the making of a documentary film called System Failure: Violence, Abuse and Neglect in the California Youth Authority.

Recently, such ongoing efforts appear to have made some actual headway. At the end of last month, Gov. Schwarzenegger’s California Youth Authority chief announced a plan to transform the CYA into an institution that rehabilitates, rather than merely punishes, youth.

The story behind this new plan began in 2003, when the Prison Law Office filed suit on behalf of California’s taxpayers, on the grounds that the CYA was failing its legal mandate to provide rehabilitation for young people in its custody. The court commissioned an independent group of investigators who found that prison staff regularly initiate fights between young people, spray them with chemical weapons and high-pressure hoses, and lock them up in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day – often for months at a time. The state settled last fall, requiring the CYA to report a plan for reform by the end of last month.

If the plan is executed, it will mean keeping young people near their homes, including families in the treatment and rehabilitation process, providing a truly rehabilitative environment, and staffing the programs with trained specialists. Such models have worked in other states—Missouri, which committed to this course some 20 years ago, is now seen by many as a national model. According to the plan, the CYA has until Nov. 30, 2005, to develop a detailed plan for implementation.

Earlier this year California State Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles) also announced her intention to introduce a bill with similar aims. The bill she hopes to pass would call for the immediate closure of the most dysfunctional facilities and place all girls and young women in county programs. The bill would also call for the eventual redesign of the rest of the CYA’s prisons to become small-scale, rehabilitative programs housing only young people’s whose families and communities are nearby.

While encouraged by these recent developments, many youth of color, families and allies involved in the movement are wondering: Is this just an attempt to end the controversy? Or have the decision-makers finally gotten the message?

A Broader Vision

David Kahn, youth program director at Let’s Get Free, says there are several places where the plan should push farther, such as developing a strong community oversight process to ensure that the CYA adheres to its commitment. “There’s also no mention of closing the facilities and opening new ones,” Kahn adds. “In order to provide a safe and supportive environment that is close to home, those that exist now won’t work.”

Let’s Get Free also hopes to intervene on a larger, systematic level. The group wants to see an end to what they see as racist sentencing practices, which they believe result in the over-representation of youth of color in places like CYA. They also hope to monitor the prison guard lobby. Some of the loudest and most colorful opposition to the CYA’s new plan so far have come out of from this lobby – the Los Angeles Times recently quoted a former prison officer asking, “Who wrote this plan, Walt Disney?” The California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA), the state’s prison guard union, is one of the highest contributors to legislators across the political spectrum. Anti-prison and prison reform activists have long cited this lobby as a driving force behind what they call “the punishment industry,” by fostering a tough-on-crime climate that ensures their jobs won’t be taken away.