"It protects children of California that are in oiur charge," the bill's author, Sen. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, said Wednesday as the measure passed the Senate on a 28-0 vote.
Thompson, whose bill passed out of the Assembly the day before on a 75-2 vote, added that the measure provides for 50 major changes in California's $1 billion-a-year foster-care system. He said he expects Gov. Wilson to sign the measure.
The changes are aimed at giving state officials much tighter controls over group homes and out-of-state reform agencies.
The problems affected some 16,000 children, many of whom are down to their last chance before being sent to prison or a mental institution.
Included in the changes made under Thompson's legislation is a requirement that all out-of-state reform programs adhere to California's strict guidelines and that they be certified annually by the state Department of Social Services to be eligible to accept youths from this state.
That change stems directly from the March death of 16-year-old Nicholaus Contreraz of Sacramento, who died of a massive but undiagnosed lung infection after being sent to the privately run Arizona Boys Ranch for rehabilitation for a series of minor criminal episodes. Contreraz was being put through a series of rigorous and punitive exercises when he collapsed.
The Boys Ranch and more than a dozen other facilities in other states once housed nearly 1,000 California youths. They will have one year to gain certification by DSS offficials, under the legislation.
However, many of those facilities employ tactics not allowed by California, inlcuding the use of physical force to subdue juveniles and forced exercise.
It remains unclear, however, whether the Arizona Boys Ranch, once one of the largest agencies used by California, could be certified because of DSS's decision last month to stop paying to send children there. That decision came after the state investigated abuses at the Boys Ranch and found that physical and psychological abuse was "endemic" in the program.
Boys Ranch president Bob Thomas could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
Other major changes under the legislation include:
- A requirement that new group homes in California operate under provisional licenses for the first year of operation.
- Toughened requirements that all group home employees who will have contact with juveniles face fingerprint screening and federal background checks through a $1.3 million program.
Copyright 1998, The Riverside Press-Enterprise
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