Coed Youth Prison May Transfer Males

The scandal-plagued juvenile prison in Camarillo, the only coed facility in the California Youth Authority system, will probably house only female inmates beginning next year -- a change that would save money and solve nagging problems, state officials said.

“When you look for an obvious place where you can cut back on expenses, I would anticipate closing the male portion. That is such a logical option,� said Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara). “And as we keep tightening the belt on this budget, the entire facility may be [threatened].�

Even before the extent of California’s budget crisis became known, youth authority administrators recommended to Gov. Gray Davis closing the male portion of the Ventura County prison along with juvenile lockups in Stockton and Whittier.

That isn’t only because of a tight state budget. Juvenile prison inmates have dropped from 7,600 three years ago to about 4,900 today, the result of a demographic shift and a sharp decline in youth violence. Felony juvenile arrests in California are half of what they were two decades ago.

Transferring male inmates out of the Camarillo facility also makes sense, officials said, because of a host of problems associated with running a coed prison. In fact, the state inspector general recommended such a move last year in a highly critical audit.

Now, the state’s $38-billion budget shortfall has forced the issue on a Legislature that still has not passed a state budget that was due July 1.

“In a relative sense, our budget cuts are not as great as some other state departments are taking,� said California Youth Authority Director Jerry Harper. “But these are significant cuts.�

So far, the only certain closure is that of the Karl Holton Drug and Alcohol Treatment program in Stockton, where 175 employees were notified last month that the facility would be shut down Oct. 31 and that they might be laid off.

Closure of the Fred C. Nelles youth prison in Whittier, the oldest of the CYA’s 11 lockups, is recommended for 2006.

The 95-acre campus is in central Whittier, surrounded by homes and businesses, and the officials have noted its value to real estate developers. But opposition by Assemblyman Rudy Bermudez (D-Norwalk) has prompted the youth authority to look for other options.

The three recommended closures would save about $23 million a year, including $5.3 million at the Camarillo prison, officials have estimated.

Harper said he expected the Legislature to ratify the Camarillo change when it finally adopts a budget. The changeover is tentatively set for March.

It is not yet clear how many of the Camarillo facility’s 425 employees would be laid off or transferred if all 171 male wards were shipped to other youth prisons, he said. Staff would still be needed for about 240 female wards and 64 male inmate firefighters who live on site but outside the prison’s walls.

The male inmates’ departure would make Camarillo an all-female facility for the first time since 1970. That would end logistical problems cited by last year’s inspector general audit and allow staff members to spend time helping inmates instead of taking care of day-to-day necessities, Harper said.

“We agreed that we should close down the boys’ half, so we could concentrate our time and resources on the girls,� Harper said. “The girls have a lot of different issues, from pregnancies to backgrounds that almost always include physical or sexual abuse.�

Girl inmates have mental problems far more often than boys, he said, and attempt suicide more frequently.

Last year’s audit found a variety of “serious problems� at the Camarillo prison despite broad reforms in 1999 prompted by the discovery of sexual misconduct by staff members and chronic mismanagement.

Essential services were falling through the cracks because employees and facilities had to be shared by young men and women separated by a $1-million, 16-foot-tall fence. Separation, prompted by several inmate pregnancies, the audit found, caused a costly duplication of services.

“The institution’s problems encompass the full spectrum of the facility’s operation,� auditors reported, “including ward treatment services, medical services, mental health services, education, fund-raising, internal investigations and institution security.�

For example, the audit found that the Camarillo facility was weeks late in evaluating the mental health of female prisoners, that some prison practices jeopardized the health of wards and babies born to them and that the prison failed to provide counseling to inmates as required by law.

Harper said Friday that he has used the inspector general’s recommendations to improve not only the Camarillo facility but the entire CYA system of 11 prisons and four camps.

Once a nationwide model, the system has drawn fire from the Legislature, the inspector general and youth law advocates in recent years for subjecting wards to excessive force and failing to offer mental health and rehabilitation programs.

“We still have some work to do; we haven’t corrected everything,� Harper said. “But I think we’ve made some significant improvements.�

Among the most important, he said, was providing more mental health testing of inmates and better tracking of their progress. Before, only some inmates were tested for mental illness. Now all are scored for their mental fitness and tracked by computer.

“We have a tighter handle on the medical, psychological and psychiatric issues than we did,� he said. “Some of it was being sensitive to girls’ issues, to human relations .... We’re trying to get the staff to understand the importance of being more sensitive to the girls.�

Holes in the inmate grievance procedure have also been patched, he said.

The inspector general found that grievances filed by inmates, particularly the females, were frequently lost or misplaced by employees.

Now inmates can file complaints directly into a locked “staff action box,� which only prison Supt. Eugenia Ortega and her top assistant have access to. Every grievance is given a number and must be tracked until the complaint is resolved.

The new system should stop the kind of sexual abuse that led to scandal in the past, Harper said. Last year, one guard resigned under threat of dismissal for writing improper letters to a ward, and another employee also left under pressure, he said. A third allegation was found baseless, and a fourth is still under investigation.

Harper said the Camarillo facility has improved dramatically since scandal led to the removal of its top three administrators four years ago.

That investigation ended after 15 employees were fired or forced to resign for having improper relations with inmates, including five who had sex with prisoners.

Sixteen other employees were either reprimanded, counseled or reassigned for a variety of lesser offenses.