Calling California's policy of sending troubled youths out of state for treatment "state-sponsored child abuse," a key congressman Wednesday demanded federal and state investigations into the practice.

"I want to know why it is appropriate to subject a California child -- even a troubled child -- to punishment in Arizona or Nevada when that very same treatment is illegal in California," U.S. Rep. George Miller, D-Pleasant Hill, said in letters to Gov. Pete Wilson and U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala. Miller, a 20-year congressman, sits on a committee that oversees youth and family policy and has successfully battled the issue before.

A Shalala spokesman said the agency, which has already announced an investigation into California's group home system, also will review problems in out-of-state placements. Wilson's press secretary, Sean Walsh, said the governor would "take the letter under advisement," as he looks into the issue.

Miller quoted extensively from a series of stories that appeared earlier this week in The Bee detailing the lack of oversight of such juveniles by California.

"I seriously question the legal policy that subjects children to treatment in Arizona and Nevada that would be a crime were it to be conducted in their home state," he wrote to Wilson. "I do not appear to be alone in that judgment."

Miller cited comments in the stories by officials who said it seems hypocritical that California children are being sent out of state to face physical restraints that are not allowed in privately run programs inside California.

"Frankly, "hypocritical' strikes me as a substantial understatement; subjecting children to punishment the state knows to be illegal within California strikes me as raising very serious moral and legal issues," Miller wrote.

He also noted that some of the abuses cited in the newspaper's three-month investigation are similar to problems he uncovered in the 1980s.

"These are state-supported facilities where children die, where they are abused, where dozens of complaints are filed without a major response from state or federal authorities," Miller said. "That sounds a lot to me like state-sponsored child abuse."

But the president of Rite of Passage in Nevada, which is home to one of the largest populations of delinquent California youth, said the focus on abuse is unfair and inaccurate, but said he will comply with any new regulations imposed by California.

"It's very frustrating," said James Broman, who said that Rite of Passage was hailed as a solution two years ago in legislative hearings. "We will work with (social services) and we have demonstrated our willingness to do this year after year. We want to be looked at as part of the solution, not part of the problem."

The Arizona Boys Ranch, which had been the largest recipient of California youth, has promised to cooperate with ongoing probes of its operations in Arizona.

Probation officers also have defended the use of out-of-state programs, saying they are effective and necessary because there is no place to send such youths other than the California Youth Authority.

But criticism of out-of-state agencies has been building in California since the March 2 death of 16-year-old Nicholaus Contreraz, who was sent from Sacramento Juvenile Hall to the Arizona Boys Ranch last January. Contreraz died of a massive chest infection at the ranch as staff members allegedly ridiculed him for faking illness and forced him to exercise. His death is being investigated by officials in Arizona and California.

Miller's request for investigations marks the second time in a month that revelations about the state's lack of oversight have resulted in federal probes. An earlier series of stories on group homes sparked U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., to ask HHS for a similar investigation.

Miller's call for a probe also came as the state Legislature struggled to overhaul its system of dealing with troubled youths before the legislative session ends this summer.

"The system right now is broken and you have to begin now with an open mind," said Assemblyman Jan Goldsmith, R-Poway, a member of the Assembly's Human Services Committee, which heard the measure Wednesday. "I don't see the change coming from the (state) Department of Social Services."

Goldsmith and others criticized the department for its lack of oversight of both group homes and out-of-state placement agencies.

"I don't think that they're doing anything," Goldsmith said. "That's the problem."

The committee took no action Wednesday on the measure because portions of it still are being rewritten. Lawmakers are trying to rush it through before adjournment later this summer.

The pace did little to satisfy many in the audience, including Connie Woodward, Contreraz's grandmother.

"They can send people to the moon, why can't they build a place for our kids to be safe in this state?" Woodward asked.

She was joined by several other relatives of youths who have been sent out of state, including Candace Takeuchi, whose daughter, Dee Dee, was killed in an accident at VisionQuest after being sent to that program by Santa Clara County authorities.

Miller's requests for reviews center on two issues: the disciplinary methods used by out-of-state programs that are not allowed inside California; and whether it is proper to use federal money to help pay for such placements.

In 1986, Miller led a probe into Rite of Passage, the Nevada facility that attempts to reform juvenile delinquents through exercise and schooling in desert camps on two American Indian reservations.

At the time, he argued that the facility was ineligible for federal money because it wrongly claimed that it was a foster care facility when in fact it was being used as a detention program. California was forced to repay more than $450,000 for using the program.

Twelve years later, roughly 300 California youths are at ROP, subsidized by the same foster care dollars, according to a spokeswoman from the state Department of Social Services.

But it is not just ROP that takes foster care dollars. Thousands of delinquent youths in California group homes and out of state are partially funded by federal money because that is the way the system was set up, Broman said.

Probation officers get an average 45 percent discount on each youth placed in some 18 facilities out of state that house nearly 900 California youths.

Probation officers have complained that they have been unable to access the same foster care dollars to build programs in their own communities, an inequity that encourages them to place youths out of state.

Broman said Miller has had an ongoing issue with delinquents receiving foster care money. He said the congressman's efforts should be directed at reinventing the way the California Department of Social Services licenses programs to allow private facilities such as his to treat California youths in state.

"The fact that we have known about the serious potential problems of such programs for more than a decade . . . makes the current situation all the more disturbing," Miller said in his letter to Wilson.