Chalk one up for compassionate conservatism

State Youth Prisons on Road to Rehab
Schwarzenegger details an overhaul of the CYA meant to settle a suit alleging abuse of inmates. Critics say it doesn't go far enough.
By Jenifer Warren
Times Staff Writer

November 17, 2004

STOCKTON — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday unveiled plans for an overhaul of California's prisons for the young, turning his focus to a system that has been widely maligned for its violence, substandard healthcare and failure to steer wayward youths toward a law-abiding future.

The governor's announcement, along with the appointment of a special master, marked the settlement of a lawsuit challenging conditions in the California Youth Authority, where some of the state's most troubled and violent juvenile convicts are confined. The agreement must still be approved by a federal judge.

"The lawsuit said that California should have done a better job with its young offenders," the governor said in remarks at a notorious youth prison here, "and it was right…. We are on the right track now."

The agreement will "put the focus back on rehabilitation" and give the CYA's 3,700 young inmates "a better chance to succeed in life," he said. The settlement is good for California, he added, because it will reduce crime and save the state millions of dollars that would have been spent fighting the lawsuit.

The settlement requires the state to develop — by January — detailed plans to improve virtually every aspect of the CYA's operations, including its management of gangs, treatment of the mentally ill and use of force by staff.

The Youth Authority also agreed to a set of short-term fixes, including the development of a system to separate vulnerable inmates from dangerous ones, reducing the time prisoners spend in isolation cells, and improvements in the handling of inmates on suicide watch.

Youth and Adult Corrections Secretary Roderick Q. Hickman said the CYA had become "entrenched in its ways," and that the agreement would help it "become the national leader that it once was."

Overseeing the state's progress will be San Francisco lawyer Donna Brorby, who was named special master and will alert the court if efforts fall short. No cost estimate for the reforms has been reached.

Longtime critics of the Youth Authority called the settlement a worthy effort that would improve the lives of inmates, but said it does not go far enough.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cya17nov17,0,1856760.story?coll=la-home-headlines

The article seems to be long on pronouncements about how much better things are going to get, and short on details. Of course, articles like this might well be written even if the details were as good as suggested, but my hunch is that the actual changes will be less dramatic than is implied.

That said, it's clearly a step in the right direction, and if it achieves what it says it will then I will take my hat off to whoever's behind it, Republicans or no.

The judge threatened to take control of the Correctional system.

And now the repugs will get the credit.

Dems long ago abandoned any hope of rehabilitation. Which, of course, insured that outcome.