NCJ Number
106692
Journal
Federal Probation Volume: 51 Issue: 2 Dated: special issue (June 1987) Pages: 65-68
Date Published
1987
Length
4 pages
Annotation
The California Youth Authority, intended to redirect the lives of juvenile offenders before they could become committed criminals, is now poorly managed, according to a study of the facilities by two social scientists.
Abstract
The Youth Authority Act (1941) consolidated a loose alliance of three independent but ineffective reform schools. The English borstal institutions were used as models for the new agency. The author, who began his career in the agency, believes that borstals did not transplant to the United States well and that the borstal institution is no longer effective in its own country. The Youth Authority classified its institutions first by age, then by variable of toughness in the inmates. These schools were extremely repressive and ignored Chicanos and blacks, but the system of control delayed the entry of its wards into careers of crime and actually redirected a few. Michael and Steve Lerner have studied the present condition in Youth Authority facilities and have found that intramural violence has consistently been reported at levels exceeding 2,000 incidents annually since 1982, involving 25 to 30 percent of the population. Interviews with inmates show vicious gang warfare among the boys. Although the staff is well-motivated and reasonably well-trained, more personnel are needed to make these institutions safer. The Lerners suggest that remote institutions be phased out. The Lerners do not expect rehabilitation in the Youth Authority, but they believe that institutions and juvenile justice systems can be created without harming to maximize opportunities for inmates to elect rehabilitation for themselves. 4 footnotes.