As California counties began scrambling Thursday to bring back at least 100 juvenile offenders housed at the Arizona Boys Ranch, a key state lawmaker called on California to do away with its practice of sending troubled youths to other states for rehabilitation.

"It is time to bring our children home," Assemblywoman Dion Aroner, D-Oakland, said in response to revelations of abuses at the Arizona Boys Ranch that led to the March 2 death of 16-year-old Nicholaus Contreraz.

Aroner, who chairs the Human Services Committee, is overseeing a package of reforms aimed at cleaning up the state's problem-plagued system for dealing with troubled juveniles.

But she said in a letter to state Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald M. George that judges need to help the state find alternatives to private, out-of-state agencies like the Arizona Boys Ranch, which operate with virtually no oversight from California officials.

"By all accounts I have received, these are programs that do not meet California licensing standards and that routinely rely on physical force, humiliation and confrontation as a means of controlling minors under their care," Aroner said in her letter. "Such treatment is not condoned in California in even the most secure youth facilities."

Aroner's call is the latest from state or federal officials for an end to California's practice of sending juvenile offenders to programs that are not licensed by the state and do not necessarily comply with its restrictions on physical force, forced exercise or other types of discipline.

The state has about 880 youths in 18 such programs nationwide at an annual cost of about $45 million.

Since Contreraz's death, however, the practice has come under sharp scrutiny, and the release of an investigative report earlier this week on his death convinced Aroner that counties must move quickly to pull their youths out of such programs, especially the troubled Arizona Boys Ranch.

The report was sharply critical of the ranch's practices and overall philosophy, and of Arizona officials who should have overseen ranch programs.

"I want them out as quickly as possible," Aroner said at a meeting in her office with reporters and officials involved in the issue.

Some counties already have begun preparing to remove youths from the ranch programs, including Los Angeles, with 49; Santa Clara, with 32; and San Diego, with 35 in Arizona.

The process is difficult because each county probation department must first gain the approval of the juvenile court judges who sent the youths to the Arizona Boys Ranch.

Across the state, probation officials have been meeting with judges to discuss the issue and make decisions. Sacramento County officials plan to take their eight Arizona Boys Ranch cases to the juvenile court by Monday for review.

The state Department of Social Services took steps earlier this week to prod the return of such youths by announcing it was cutting off subsidies that help defray the $3,600 a month cost of housing a youth at the boys ranch.

That announcement alone may be incentive enough for some cash-strapped counties to take action.

But Aroner said there is a larger problem to be dealt with and asked the chief justice to help draw attention to the fact that alternative programs need to be developed for such juveniles in California.

June Clark, an attorney with the Judicial Council of California, told Aroner that the chief justice had seen her letter and agreed that the state needs to explore how to create programs that keep youths in the state.

"He is aware of the importance and urgency of the issue," Clark said. "There is a general consensus among the judiciary that there is a need for alternatives closer to home."

Probation officials say they use programs in other states for the simple reason that they no longer have room for such youths in their own county ranches and juvenile halls. They also note that the youths sent out of state are not appropriate for the California Youth Authority because their crimes are not as severe.

Operators of such private programs also say they provide important services that cannot be found in California because state laws are so restrictive.

Copyright © 1998 The Sacramento Bee

Time to keep the kids home in California

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