California Youth Authority :: essays research papers

The California Youth Authority or the CYA as it is to a greater extent usually known, is an institution which provides a range of education, treatment, and training services for youthful offenders committed by courts. This scheme has been plagued by multitudes of problems for many years that need to be fixed.      The California Youth Authority is responsible for the protection of society create the vile and delinquent behavior of young people(Hill, Legislative Analyst). This is r severallyed mainly through custodial control of these juveniles and the implementation of vocational, education, health, and kind health treatment services.      As of now, CYA uses large, remote, noble-security facilities. They may be called "schools," but with about 400 kids in each one, they are more like warehouses, storing wards until they are ready for release. For decades, experts and officials have disregard this model as incapable of meeting the juvenile justice systems goal of rehabilitating youth.     The CYA is clearly not working the expressive style the way that it was knowing to run. For instance, three out of four wards who end up in the California Youth Authority are arrested on new criminal charges within three years of their release, which proves the institutions failure to rehabilitate the asseverates most impress juvenile offenders. Experts say the high number does not address how frequently California could gain from approaches used in other states (like Mississippi) such as housing wards in smaller facilities, providing intensive treatment programs, and offering more supervision and assistance after a ward is released. In smaller, reformation centers, youth would be under the supervision of trained social workers and mental health experts not prison guards.(LAO Report, pg. 7). This would allow the offenders to be in nigher contact with their families, as well as a variety of se rvices.      The number age of a CYA institution is 43 years old. This means the in that respect are many maintenance and repair needs and, at both(prenominal) point, many buildings will have to be replaced. Also, the population that many of the institutions were designed for 40 or 50 years ago is different than at presents youthful offender. Finally, the ward population has decreased from a high of over 10,000 in 1996 to its current level of 4,300. This decline has resulted in overcapacity and presents an probability to consider closure(Lao Report, pg. 11). Closing some institutions would save the state money, and enable the state to implement programs to lower recidivism rates.