NCJ Number
124000
Date Published
1988
Length
129 pages
Annotation
Reforming the California Youth Authority (CYA) is the third in a series of reports published by the Commonwealth Research Institute in an eight-year study of the nation's largest system of youth training schools.
Abstract
This report finds that CYA institutions are seriously overcrowded, offer minimal treatment value despite their high expense, and are ineffective in long-term protection of public safety. Short-term recommendations to remedy these problems include: (1) adopting available professional means to identify low-, medium-, and high-risk offenders; (2) accelerating parole for nonviolent, nonchronic, low-risk technical parole violators and mentally ill youth; (3) developing short-term programs for technical parole violators and appropriate nonviolent offenders. Long-term recommendations include: (1) abolishing the Youthful Offender Parole Board; (2) dividing CYA into one agency for young adults too vulnerable to survive in the prison system and one for juveniles committed by juvenile courts; and (3) returning the responsibility for all but the most serious and violent offenders to the counties.