Delegation upbeat about meeting with prison care receiver
By Timm Herdt
Ventura County Star
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A delegation of Ventura County officials met Tuesday with federal prison healthcare receiver Clark Kelso to convey its concerns over Kelso’s plan to convert the Ventura Youth Correctional Facility to a 1,500-bed adult prison for inmates with chronic medical and mental health problems.
“It was a good information exchange,” said District Attorney Greg Totten, who has known Kelso for years. “I think he understands that community opposition to the facility is significant and fairly unified.”
Kelso met for about an hour in his Sacramento office with Totten, Assemblywoman Audra Strickland, Supervisor Kathy Long and Undersheriff Craig Husband.
“He was very attentive and listened to all our concerns,” said Strickland, R-Moorpark. “I think it’s a good start, and it has opened the dialogue for further conversation.”
Strickland said she delivered to Kelso petitions and letters she has received from Ventura County residents concerned about the proposal.
Totten said Kelso pledged his office would meet soon in Ventura County with a larger group of interested parties. “That’s certainly something we want to see happen,” Totten said.
The prison healthcare plan has spawned community opposition in Camarillo, much of it from residents who say they support the continued operation of the youth prison, which has been at the site northwest of the city for more than 40 years.
Kelso said last week that he included the Camarillo site in his plans to construct seven stand-alone prison healthcare facilities because he believed the state’s long-range plan was to close the youth facility.
The meeting came a day after the Little Hoover Commission, a state government watchdog group, issued a report recommending that the state turn over all juvenile justice operations to the counties.
The commission notes that state officials, spurred by a 2005 settlement of a lawsuit alleging inhumane treatment of wards, have already substantially shifted responsibility for youth corrections to counties.
The population at state-run juvenile corrections facilities has plummeted from 10,112 in 1996 to 1,896 last month.
The Little Hoover report says the population is expected to fall to fewer than 1,500 wards by 2012 - 1,365 boys and 62 girls.
The Ventura Youth Correctional Facility is the only state-run institution to house female wards. As of May 31, it housed 171 boys and 86 girls.
The commission, noting that the state’s cost-per-ward has skyrocketed from $115,000 a year to $252,000 a year since the settlement was reached, concludes that further juvenile justice reforms could be carried out more efficiently if the state closed its operations.
Strickland said the questions of whether the youth correctional facility should remain open and whether an adult healthcare prison should be built at the site are distinct.
“It’s a separate policy question whether the facility is built,” she said. “In terms of the broader policy of juvenile justice, that needs to be looked at very closely.”
Copyright 2008 Ventura County Star