Youth Authority's Extreme Makeover

Connie Brewer spent Monday, May 16 in Sacramento trying to deliver 3,500 postcards from all over California to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The postcards demanded that all eight large youth prison facilities run by the California Youth Authority be shut down. The idea was to match each card with one of the 3,216 wards in CYA custody. May 16 was, not coincidentally, the same day the troubled agency unveiled a court-mandated plan to transform its internal philosophy from a punitive correctional, to an evidence-based rehabilitative, program.

Surrounded by TV cameras, Brewer and 15 other loud parents, relatives, youth activists and members of Books Not Bars, an Oakland-based youth advocacy group, parked themselves outside the governor's office. They wore white on black T-shirts proclaiming "Close CYA Prisons, Open Youth Opportunities" and sang, "We are closing the youth prisons, we shall not be moved!"

They wanted, and got, a June 1 meeting with Schwarzenegger about shuttering CYA's eight facilities that hold between 365 and over 1,000 youths each.

Brewer knows all about the CYA's problems. She lost her 24-year-old son Dyron Brewer on Sept. 5, 2004. "I was told they found him dead in his cell," said Brewer, an Oakland resident now active with Books Not Bars. "They did an investigation and they said he died of natural causes. That's all they said. The autopsy said his heart and liver were normal. He went to sleep and did not wake up." Tearing up, she added, "I really want to know what really happened to my child. You don't just go to sleep, then when they brought his body out he had a black eye." (According to the CYA, the San Joaquin Sheriff's Office and an outside coroner's final report, Dyron Brewer died of "sudden cardiac arrest.")

To call the CYA troubled might be an understatement. In addition to Dyron, three other youths died last year in CYA custody--two were confirmed suicides. There is the now infamous video of CYA staffers beating two wards senseless as other guards looked on that was splashed over the network news in April 2004. That's not to mention a relentless series of official reports, lawsuits and news stories detailing rampant violence, abuse, retaliation and educational, medical and mental healthcare failures. To top it all off, the CYA's recidivism rate varies from 50 to 90 percent, depending on how CYA statistics are read, one of the worst in the nation.

A Whole New CYA?

The May 16 announcement is a direct result of a huge lawsuit covering all aspects of CYA operations filed in December 2003 by the San Quentin-based Prison Law Office, and settled in January 2004. As part of the settlement the CYA agreed to a set of reform deadlines; Monday marked the unveiling of a series of reforms the agency must implement starting in November.

"Basically the overarching philosophy here is we are transforming how the CYA is working with youth offenders," said CYA information officer Sarah Ludeman. "We are replacing a correctional focus on punishment with one that is anchored to group therapy, instilling self discipline in youth and preparing them to be productive members of society." Ludeman also stressed staff retraining and "more family involvement and more support from the community."

The "Programmatic Description of the Rehabilitative Model for the CYA" rededicates the agency to its statutory mission of rehabilitation that was lost to tough-on-crime politicians and the powerful prison guards union. The plan lays out commitments to decrease living unit sizes from 75 wards to 35 or 40 in each, "increased staff to ward ratios, comprehensive assessments and reassessments ... individualized behavioral contracts" and the creation of a "normative culture" involving "positive peer culture," i.e. positive feedback and effective case management.