Quest: The California Youth Authority's Golden Years

© 2012 Robert L. Smith. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/23/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4772-7256-5 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-7257-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-7258-9 (sc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012917579

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Quest

Beginning

Trainee

Parole Officer and Consultant

Supervising Parole Officer

Renaissance

Real World - - More Or Less

Dream Factory

Hope And Dreams

Summing Up

Another Presence

Selected Readings

About the Author

Dedication

Allen F. Breed was a mentor, associate, and friend for over 60 years who moved on in the universe in 2011. He was, in my opinion, the last Director of the California Youth Authority. Those who came later were raw political appointments exhibiting little leadership or administrative skills. They certainly had no vision of alternative futures or possibilities.

Allen was one of the last Directors believing that you could substitute training and treatment for retributive punishment and do it while operating correctional institutions and programs that were, secure, safe, humane, and constitutional. He believed that to do so requires good administrative data on which to base management decisions, while promoting science and research as the basis for developing and testing new and better programs. To accomplish these decisions, data, and research findings had to be open to the public and available to friends and foes alike. Openness was his source of community and public support.

He believed in people, a strategy of search, and was willing to risk for his beliefs while testing yours.

Many will miss him. I will miss his telling me where I did not get the story right, and did not understand institutions, but then, in his opinion parole and probation officers never did.

I remember many New Year’s days, when we, along with our wives, Fran and Virginia sipped good champagne, ate our picnic lunch, and began again our regular argument about straightening out the rest of the world. We did not get it right, but we will continue trying, given the opportunity.

Acknowledgments

Five former colleagues are responsible for this memoir. They encouraged me, helped me with research, and jogged my memory when needed. They are:

Ron Hayes was the source of the idea to write a memoir, and forget the last years of the Youth Authority after 1976. He frequently found sources of information long forgotten, and reminded me of thing I no longer remembered.

Robert E. Keldgord was a volunteer who served as critic and editor of very rough drafts of the manuscript, frequently without paging, and provide me with honest criticism. He did a great job of both, for which I am indebted even though he blames me for failing eyesight.

Fred Mills volunteered without knowing it. In spite of his worldly travels, he provided me with needed information from a dozen different locations, by e-mail and other sorts of exotic devises. His help was invaluable, sometimes critical, and greatly appreciated.

Ted Palmer, PH.D, author and friend was my research expert. He was helpful in providing me with research documents, publications, and sources for things long forgotten. His insight, and memory, like his work, was priceless.

Hal Richard, friend, and colleague introduced me to the resources of the Bancroft Library, Earl Warren Oral History Project, at the University of California Berkeley. It is a treasure for one looking for descriptions by leaders and politicians about their own histories and in their own words. I read them all and learned a great deal, about what was going on around me without my knowing it was happening.

Quest

In 1951, ten years late, I joined a quest for correctional reform known as the California Youth Authority. It was emerging from legislation enacted in 1941 patterned largely after the Model Youth Correction Authority Act submitted to the Nation in 1940 by the American Law Institute. Although coming closer to the Model Act than any of the five states implementing the program, California did not achieve the precise open model envisioned by ALI (American Law Institute) to design an open organizational system for the administration of criminal justice for youth. It survived the neglect born of the demands of WWII, lack of funding, by the State Legislature, public institutions out of control, and only a few visionaries who believed, and dreamed, what might be. The dream came to life in 1943 with revised legislation, and a Governor, and legislature, who began to support an idea whose time had come.

A Youth Authority idea was not new. Consultants for the American Law Institute later acknowledged that they borrowed heavily from the English Borstal system proposed by the Gladstone Committee in 1895 who wanted to separate youths from older convicts in adult prisons. Sir Evelyln Ruggles-Brise, a prison commissioner, proposed the establishment of a Borstal institution in Borstal, a village near Rochester, Kent, England in 1902. The system became law in the Prevention of Crime Act of 1908. Young men under the age of 21, and later 23, committing criminal offenses were eligible for the program.

Borstal was to be educational rather than punitive, but highly regulated, with a focus on routine, discipline, and authority. Employees were to lead by example, whether work, language, or demeanor. Group leaders, employees often worked side by side with their charges clearing reeds in the Fens, or building roads and walls in farming communities. The only corporal punishment available to Borstal was birching for mutiny or assaulting an officer. This punishment required the approval of a local magistrate followed by the personal approval by the Home Secretary. Six cases received the punishment during the first 10 years of the program. Youth received license (parole) by the institution for up to three years.

Institutions tended to develop programs around themes and or trades that were traditional in England. There were maritime schools for merchant seaman, military schools for Marines, Navy, Army, agricultural schools for farming, and trade schools for different types of apprenticeships. All had strong academic and athletic programs.

The Criminal Justice Act of 1982 abolished the borstal system in the U.K., and introduced custody centers instead. An icon of youth correctional program lasted eighty years before succumbing to age and fashion - - a remarkable history. It foretold the pending future the California Youth Authority.

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During the California Youth Authority Act’s formative war years, 1941-45, California’s implementation of the proposed law was delayed, substantially, by lack of resources. During those years, the character of the new agency and its future was in process. By default, California Youth Authority (CYA) became organizationally responsible for the direct operation and management of the States three correctional schools, The Fred C. Nelles Reformatory for Boys, Whittier, California, Ventura School for Girls, and Preston School of Industry in Ione. While the American Law Institute’s plan did not anticipate absorbing operating institutions, it expected the new agency to establish and operate new programs, if necessary, but not take over the old ones with their existing problems.

The original Youth Correctional Authority Act approved by the Council of the American Law Institute created a Youth Corrections Authority consisting of three persons with power to accept or reject commitments. After careful screening, wards of the new commission would transfer to programs, public or private, that met their treatment needs. Services could include incarceration or some less strict form of supervision and control. The Authority was to maintain its responsibility for their ward until, in its judgment, it was reasonably safe to release the youth back into the community.

In determining the appropriate treatment, the Authority was given powers to contract for and commit to any a state reformatory or to any existing probation or parole agency, with the limitations that the Authority could not interfere with the management of these institutions or agencies. They also had the power of conditional release from any program, and the order of return if needed. The same also was true for private treatment services in the community.

The Act was, in theory, a break from the past. It offered a correction’s model built on Institutional Theory, with most of the elements of an Open System, which avoids many of the problems of the Closed System which contain limited energies since contacts are primarily with other units within it. It feeds on old information and practice, and quickly loses the energy necessary for long time survival. Outside contacts are limited, and bit by bit, it is the source of its own destruction because of complexities, with which it can no longer cope successfully. Whether open or closed, all systems are destined for increasing complexity, entropy, and disorder. Only open systems survive over extended time, and even they eventually are destroyed by uncontrolled complexity and disorder.

The open system assumes a constant new supply of energy from outside of itself - - in the surrounding environment. Like the closed system, the open system’s mandate is to survive and grow stronger. The difference, however, is that increasing complexity of the closed system cannot, by its own practices, expand the intake of new ideas and resources, operations, material, energy, people, capital and information or ideas from the surrounding environment. It restricts new information, and copes with threats of the new by developing rules, policies, and procedures to limit or restrict the increasing complexity brought on by new and different experience. It also increases the vertical spans of control rather than the horizontal, e.g., there are more people, further from the point of service delivery, trying to control others who also are removed from the point of service contact. It also changes rules, goals, and even values, to support the survival of the system and govern the behavior of those controlling the controllers. Neither system, open or closed, can stop decay, but the open system may delay it. The ultimate end to any physical or social system is increasing entropy (See: von Bertalanffy’s General Systems Theory, 1968).

The seeds of self-destruction begin when the theoretical model organization (goals, objectives, and strategies) brings in people to carry tasks associated with specific work. The new and old employees bring with them their own sets of goals and objectives patterned after real life experiences. These attitudes (tendency to respond) begin to modify organization’s values. What people are, what they believe, and what they do introduces unanticipated changes, that given time, kill the energy and enthusiasm the model organization once generated. Open organizations have a longer life expectancy because of an infusion of new energy. However, the culture that develops in the closed institution ultimately moves the organization to stasis, and not change. Staff becomes more concerned with their rights, salaries, promotions, etc. more than achieving the goals for which the organization originally formed. Beliefs change with the reality of being.

The California Youth Corrections Authority Act and the American Law Institute model act, proposed a new set of relationships that modeled an open system. Both acts relied on units and organizations outside of it to carry out its mandate. Both proposed using contractual and/or voluntary community resources as a part of the treatment mandate. It involved serious and increased involvement of the public, and its institutions in correctional reform. It invited outside organizations and individuals to provide services and participate in the functions of the new organization that were unfamiliar to those who previously operated prisons, jails, and reformatories. Purchase of services from the community, over which it had no authority other than voluntary cooperation and contractual agreement, were two revolutionary concepts for corrections.

In the process, the Agency, in addition to operating its own institutions, came to subsidize community services such as, probation, camps, and ranches, set standards for probation, juvenile halls, and camps, training for probation officers, and police officers working with juveniles, organizing community groups for prevention and improved social control. They also did community studies of youth service needs; management studies for probation departments, regional training for correctional workers in all fields with the University of California, Berkeley. Management and staff became members of women’s groups like PTA, League of Women Voters, Junior League, etc. They arranged for and organized state- conferences on problems of children and youth for the Governor’s Office, and on at least one occasion provided staff for a National Conference on Children and Youth called by the President of the United States. Activities of the CYA went far beyond the simple practice of providing safe, humane, constitutional care for youthful offenders. It put its confidence and some resources into the community and people who were closest to the problem, and had the greatest investment and concern.

The Model Act provided the new agency with the mandate to clear away the brush of years of secrecy and isolation by which corrections was generally governed, An out of sight, out of mind, attitude on how youthful offenders should be treated. It also set forth an unstated proposition that the community would learn that them were really us. As the agency grew in size so too did responsibilities for delinquency prevention, research and development that transcended local responsibilities. As the complexity of operations increased so did, new opportunities for grants and studies to increase knowledge and skill about what worked and what did not. In the beginning, the new agency was committed to a quest for solutions to very old problems. It created an environment that encouraged a search for new ideas, programs, and relationships. It fostered camaraderie within itself, and between other states, and even colleagues in other parts of the world. Its working environment was challenging, and exciting.

+++

By 1977, some of us realized that the power for our original quest was fading, waning in spirit, leadership, and courage. We had also lost our professional influence to professional politicians whose principal concern was election, not good correctional practice, or effective programs. The agency was beginning to ossify because of politics, loss of leadership, and the simple process of a new agency aging like any other social institution. We had lost to time, social change, political character, or lack of it, and a society that needed quick answers to complicated problems.

Initiatives replaced legislative deliberation and law became a written statement of faith by the masses, by intuition, and not careful consideration. Individual beliefs and revenge became programs of retribution and revenge, not corrections. Correctional law drifted into common belief, not knowledge. The Administration and Legislature abandoned their responsibilities for maintaining a strategy for seeking the best answers rather than one of political compromise and convenience. There were no longer heroes standing at the gates of prisons in opposition to a legislature, and public who wanted revenge, not humane control, or habilitation. Correctional reform turned on its head and reverted to century old traditions and customs, familiar failures that promised protection without humanity. The changes were probably inevitable, as they are to most long-lived organizations, but for almost thirty plus years, a remarkable achievement in a public service persisted and gained strength. It was a high point in modern correctional reform. Friend and foe alike remember it with respect and sadness of its demise.

As a part-time philosopher friend of mine keeps reminding me, Another season, and another presence. Let’s find out what a new presence should be and be willing to test it. He is right, why the Youth Authority idea failed has little to do with what needs doing now. Those currently responsible need to discover a new vision to seek one appropriate to existing reality, and not hassle or shed tears over the old. Responsible administrators and legislators need to get on with the business designing what a new youth corrections act should offer, to whom, and how it might operate — perhaps they might rediscover the magic of social institutions that operate openly or transparently. With appropriate humility, the designers should keep their eyes on their new organization since it cannot operate forever as intended (30 years at the outside) before new revisions will be required to prolong the dream. That would be an unusual record for any social institution providing good, humane, safe correctional care, and control, within constitutional limits. It is a quest and goal worthy of rediscovery, particularly in the changing world in which we now live.

+++

Keith Griffiths, Ph.D., first director of research for the California Youth Authority expressed the idea simply. "A good correctional program is driven by, and committed to discovery and truth, a strategy of search, that seeks the best answers, not always the easiest, to the difficult and complex problems of human change. Even then, we must understand that our quest is the search, not just clichés and/or simple answers that happen to be popular or convenient."

Those who served during the good years of the agency served with giants who were recognized as national and international leaders in corrections. They were, with few exceptions, interesting people, individuals, and frequently characters that stood bigger than life. What follow is a personal memoir, and not just a history, of a special time, special people of great commitment, and a mission that was creative, worthwhile, exciting, challenging, and rewarding to the community. I hope that it will help people remember the Golden Years of the California Youth Authority. Whether it was a quest, crusade, or just a movement by reformers, it was something very special for those who lived it.

However, that was another season, and this is the time for another presence. What follows is a nostalgic look back at correctional career(s) in an agency (system) that offered satisfaction, challenge, opportunity, and joy to employees who took pride in what they did, and earned admiration from others nationally and internationally about their willingness to search for new answers to difficult problems. It is history mixed with facts, but it is also a collection of memories lived by those who were proud of what they thought they knew only to be humbled by learning how much they did not know. It is also about real people who were, intentionally or not, the spirit behind The Strategy of Search, that motivated the California Youth Authority throughout most of its successful years.

May future scholars and politicians rediscover the magic of an early correctional success, and may our readers enjoy meeting many of the people who contributed to a very special quest for correctional excellence. They too were committed to their dreams and beliefs, but they rejected unsubstantiated and unproven prejudices about programs of retribution rather than redemption. They focused on aspiration, not affirmation. They dreamed of new answers to very old problems with an open mind. They enjoyed the experience of the search, and the rewards of the quest.

Beginning

1941-1951

The California Youth Authority began operation in 1942 under legislation enacted in 1941. Although patterned after the Model Youth Correction Authority Act submitted to the Nation in 1940 by the American Law Institute, it did not follow the precise structure envisioned by the Institute. The Model Act and the Youth Authority Act had several things in common, but nothing more so than the social demands, pressures exerted in 1930s urging that the criminal justice system for juveniles, and youth needed basic reform.

Forcefully described in L. V. Harrison and P.M. Grant’s book, Youth in the Toils in 1938, the book details child abuse in prisons and jails, of juveniles held in adult facilities, suicides of children in custody, sexual molestation by adult inmates and minors frequently receiving longer sentences than adults for similar offenses do. Children as young as eight years of age received orders of execution. Constitutional rights of children and youth regularly were being by the court and law enforcement.

+++

In April 1936, the Executive Committee of the American Law Institute formed a Criminal Justice-Youth Committee to respond to the charges that the rights of children and youth were violated. The committee was given the responsibility to develop a Model Act relating to youth convicted of violations of the law. William Draper Lewis, Director of the Institute, was selected as Chairman and John Barker Waite, University of Michigan Law School, reporter. Other members of the committee included: Curtis Bok, Presiding Judge, Court of Common Pleas No. 6, Philadelphia; Edward R. Cass, General Secretary, American Prison Association, New York City; Sheldon Glueck, Harvard University Law School; Leonard V. Harrison, Director, Committee on youth and Justice, Community Service Society, York City; William Healy, Director, Judge Baker Guidance Center, Boston; Edwin R. Keedy, University of Pennsylvania Law School; Austin H. McCormick, Commissioner of Corrections, New York City; William H. Mikell, University of Pennsylvania Law School; Thorsten Sellin, Department of Sociology, University, Pennsylvania; Joseph N. Ulman, Supreme Bench of Baltimore, Maryland.

The American Law Institute adopted the Committee’s final draft of the Act in May 1940. Shortly after its adoption, the plan became public. The Act represented a bold break with tradition, and it was only through the prestige of the American Law Institute that it gained a wide hearing. John R. Ellingston, Field Representative for the Institute had the primary responsibility for promoting the plan and helping interested States to implement it. Even though the plan was regarded by many as a the most significant innovation in modern corrections, criticisms and resistance were quickly voiced about capital, construction, and operational costs, salary, and competency, whether a small administrative board could carry out its many and varied functions. There was even some opposition based on whether or not some of the powers granted to the new Authority were unconstitutional. Even so, the Act promoted discussion of alternative plans, modifications in the proposed legislation, and increased the public’s attention on the problem of juvenile and criminal justice for youthful offenders in the United States.

The Act provided for a central state administrative authority to prescribe and pursue a unified plan for correction and treatment of young offenders. It made commitment to the Authority mandatory in the case of persons, less than 21 years of age at the time of apprehension or persons convicted of a crime punishable by imprisonment for less than life. The lower age limit was 16, and children less than 15 years of age were eligible for commitment by the Juvenile Court under special provisions of the Act. The granting of probation was at the discretion of the Authority and not the courts, and the Act provided for a true indeterminate sentence.

The Act did not anticipate the establishment of new organizations and or, facilities, but rather a system of treatment for youth committed to the program. It provided a central authority with the power to use all existing agencies of treatments. William Draper Lewis described it best in his article, Treatment of Youth Convicted of Crime, Federal Probation, Vol. IV., No 2 (May 1940). It will be up to the Authority to work out its relationship to agencies that can offer needed assistance, in cooperation and by mutual agreement, the use of existing agencies and programs willing to serve the Authority’s clients. The Act clearly defined what would be done, but the means were left to future administrations to work out. Only the phrase, cooperation, and mutual agreement" gave any clue to the possible means to establish the desired relationship between the state and those who operated the facilities they might need to use.

Here, and elsewhere, this format highlights historical events going on around us that were, directly or indirectly, shaping, and influencing our lives and work.

43313.jpg March 4, 1933 - Franklin D. Roosevelt became President of the United States

43316.jpg September 3, 1939 - Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand declare war on Germany

43317.jpg May 26, 1940 - Evacuation of British (Allied) troops from Dunkirk

43320.jpg July 10, 1940 - Battle of Britain begins

43322.jpg August 15, 1940 - Air battles and daylight raids over Britain

43325.jpg September 3, 1940 - Hitler plans invasion of Britain

43328.jpg December 7-8, 1941 - Pearl Harbor and U.S./Britain declare war on Japan

43330.jpg January 26, 1942 - American troops to UK

43332.jpg March 18, 1942 - War Relocation Authority established in U.S. to detain 120,000 Japanese-Americans in desolate barb-wired relocation centers. Despite internment, 17,000 Japanese-Americans sign up to join the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and fight for the United States. Fighting in Europe they became the most decorated unit in U.S. history

43335.jpg May 7-8, 1942 - Battle of Coral Sea in Solomon Islands - Allies stopped invasion of New Guinea and isolation of Australia

43337.jpg May 26, 1942 - Rommel begins North African campaign

43340.jpg June 4, 1942 - Battle of Midway, four Japanese aircraft carriers lost, one American

43344.jpg June 15, 1942 - Robert L. Smith graduates from Long Beach Polytechnic High School

43346.jpg Jun 25, 1942 - Eisenhower in London

43348.jpg August 7, 1942 - Battle for Guadalcanal begins

43350.jpg November 8, 1942 - U.S. invades North Africa

43352.jpg March 28, 1943 - Robert L. Smith receives greetings from the President of the United States

43354.jpg April 18, 1943 - Smith to Army Basic Training at Kearns Field Utah

43357.jpg July 4, 1943 - Smith to University of Missouri Army Specialized Training Program designed to train soldiers as Engineers, Medical Doctors, Linguists, and Psychologists and to hold 150,000 healthy young men in reserve for the invasion of Europe

43360.jpg September 9, 1943 - Allies land in Italy

43362.jpg November 1, 1943 - Americans invade Bougainville in Solomon Islands

43364.jpg November 20, 1943 - Americans invade Makin and Tarawa in Gilbert Islands

43366.jpg January 4, 1944 - Smith shipped to Walter Reed General Hospital, Washington, D.C. to be trained as surgical technician

43368.jpg June 4, 1944 - U.S. Troops enter Rome

43370.jpg June 6, 1944 - Allied forces invade Normandy, France

43372.jpg June 15, 1944 - Americans invade Saipan in Mariana Islands

43374.jpg June 16, 1944 - Smith shipped to Europe

43376.jpg June 18, 1944 - U.S. troops reach St. Lo, Normandy

43378.jpg July 22, 1944 - Smith assigned to 28th Infantry Division, 112th Regiment, 2nd Division outside of St. Lo

43381.jpg July 29, 1944 - Breakout at St. Lo begins; Paris and France are before us

43384.jpg August 29, 1944 - Liberation Day Parade in Paris

43387.jpg September 23, 1944 - Smith wounded by mortar shell fragment in leg, evacuated Paris and Normandy.

43389.jpg December 14, 1944 - Smith returned to 112th Regiment, 2nd Bn. at Leiler, Belgium and River Ouren where Battle of Bulge began on December 16

43391.jpg January 1, 1945 - Remnants of 28th Infantry Division transferred to Alsace to reinforce the French Army clearing the Alsace Pocket

43393.jpg February 25, 1945 - Reconstituted 28th Infantry Division moved to Aachen, Germany for all out assault on Germany

43395.jpg April 12, 1945 - Franklin D. Roosevelt died and Harry S. Truman succeeded him as President of the United States

43397.jpg May 21, 1945 - 112th Regiment of 28th Infantry took up occupation duties in Hessen area: Wiesbaden and Mainz

43400.jpg May 7, 1945 - German’s surrendered unconditionally

43402.jpg July 27, 1945 - The Division had five ships waiting in Le Havre for our return home; the 112th would be transported by the General Bliss

43405.jpg October 22, 1945 - Discharged from Army and returned home, Long Beach, CA

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In November 1940, a group of one hundred fifty interested persons from all parts of California, including judges, probation officers, representatives of numerous organizations, prison officials, and others met to discuss the American Law Institute’s Youth Correction Authority Act. By the end of the meeting, the Act was endorsed in principle, and a small, but powerful committee appointed to work for its adoption in California. The committee members included: Professor A.M. Kidd of the University of California Law School, Milton Chernin, Dean of the University of California School of Social Welfare, R.R. Miller, Juvenile Probation Officer of San Francisco, O.H. Close, Superintendant of the Preston School of Industry, John Gee Clark, State Director of Penology, and Assemblyman James H. Phillips. This committee drafted a Youth Correction Authority Act for California, patterned after the Model Act, designated as Assembly Bill number 777; it was introduced in the Assembly on January 22, 1941 by Messrs. Phillips, McCollister, Welch, Tenney, Dickey, Green ,Doyle, Waters, Pfaff, Andreas, Robertson and Daley.

In June of 1941, the Legislature adopted, in great part, a Youth Correction Authority Plan close, but not identical, to that recommended by the American Law Institute. Implementation was a completely different problem, however. Historians have recorded that a three-person commission was appointed to run the Youth Authority, which sounds straightforward. However, at least two members of the new commission had somewhat different memories, (see: Earl Warren and the Youth Authority Oral History at University of California Bancroft Library, Berkeley, particularly, the section by Karl Holton.)

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Most accounts of the beginning of the Youth Authority simply state the law was passed by the legislature and required that two of the three person commission be appointed from a list prepared for Governor Culbert Olson. Appointees were to come from an Advisory Panel consisting of the presidents of the California Conference of Social Work, the Probation and Parole Officers Association, the state Bar Association, Medical Association, and Prison Association. Further, the budget for the Authority was to be $100,000 for two years. Each commission member was to receive an annual salary of $10,000 for a total of $60,000 for two years. Forty thousand remained for travel expenditures, purchase of services for implementation, and additional staff. The legislative appropriation was not generous or supportive of the new organization. The Governor’s open appointment (political patronage) was Harold Slane, a young attorney who had served as the leader of the Young Democrats for Olson organization. He was inexperienced in juvenile or adult corrections, and needed a job while he established a new law office. The remaining two appointments were Karl Holton, Chief Probation Officer for Los Angeles County, and O.H. Close, Superintendent of the Preston School of Industry. Karl Holton has a more colorful account of the board appointments. Both Holton and Close declined the state salary of $10,000 per year, but, through special arrangements with their, then, employers, remained on salary for two years while they began the process of trying to establish a new agency. Karl Holton’s remarks in the Warren Oral History of the Youth Authority previously cited are revealing about how fragile the bright new law was.

When I had returned home to Los Angeles, I learned that the five names required for the Governor’s were being prepared. They were to include people from the fields of law, social work, probation, corrections, casework, and administrative experience with juvenile programs. The Governor was to select three people from his list, only two of whom had to have the experience outlined. The three remaining names were then to go Senate for approval. I was surprised. The bill, as drafted, was not something under which you could operate. It did not set up any framework for operation. It just gave you a bunch of general statements about what you should do. In addition, the legislature, gave you the magnificent sum of $100,000 to last the agency for two years, and they set the salaries of each one of the Board members at $10,000 apiece — the same salary as the Governor of the State of California, plus expenses.

The Governor wanted a young lawyer for his patronage appointment. He had absolutely no experience in anything, including the law. Even so, he turned out to be a good board member. They interviewed a number of other people and asked me if I would help them screen the candidates. I did. They never asked me about anything including being on the board. They asked me about Ken Scudder and other people like that, and I gave them several names. However, they never asked me if I was interested or would serve. When I returned to my office in Los Angeles Judge Desmond called me in asked me what was the matter with me. What did I mean by leaving the county? I told him I did not know I was. He said he was told that Governor Olson had appointed me to the Youth Authority Board. How? I never was asked. Well, someone thinks you were; you were appointed last night.

I am not going to be on the Board. I was not asked, and if I had been, I would have told them I was not interested. I did tell the people I met with that the budget and the organization of the existing legislation made it impossible for anyone to make the new agency work. I liked what I was doing and had no intention of sitting around for two years doing nothing. The next day I received a special delivery letter from the Governor with my commission. He also told me that he had appointed O.H. Close, Superintendent at Preston to the board. The next day I received a call from Mr. Close. He wanted to know if I had accepted my appointment. I told him no, in fact, I had just sent the Governor a respectful letter declining his offer explaining that, in my opinion, the existing legislation could not work. I did not want a job where nothing could be done when I had a job I enjoyed and felt I was contributing.

When the legislature learned that both Mr. Close and I had declined our commissions, they very nearly killed the Youth Authority Bill by introducing another bill rescinding it. The Governor called Mr. Close and me and asked if we would accept the commission if we could retain the jobs we had? He had in mind having our own agencies second (temporarily loan) us to the state for two years to organize the new agency. I told him I could not agree to such a plan unless the Board of Supervisors and Judges agreed. He called the Chairman of the Board of Supervisors, and the Presiding Judge of the Superior Court and they agreed that I should do it. Therefore, for the next two years I was on loan to the state with my salary paid by Los Angeles County. The specific order called for me to attend such meetings as were necessary to help reorganize the Youth Authority bill and rewrite it, if necessary. The State made a similar arrangement for Mr. Close, and he too would continue to be paid (from their budget) as Superintendent of the Preston School while working to make the Youth Authority operational. Shortly thereafter, the Board had its first meeting at Preston School and elected O.H. Close as our Chairman of the Youth Authority for the next two years. Neither of us could support Mr. Slane as chair because of his complete lack of experience. We also decided two other things. We would try to develop our first Diagnostic Clinic at Preston, and we would undertake a statewide survey to determine the size of the possible population the courts would commit as well as, the needs for services this population might require.

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The theme of Quest, suggests that we should know something about our heroes, villains, and others - - something about their background, training, skills, and even peculiarities where we can. Karl Holton, the first Director of the Youth Authority achieved his recognition and experience through trial and error. He was to all extents and purposes, a self-made man who was not ordained to being the first Director of the California Youth Authority. He was simply looking for the best job he could get, with some security. He was intelligent, hard working, creative, and politically adroit. His life experiences equipped him for his unique role in founding a new, and for many years, a premier correctional agency for youth.

Karl Holton was born in Elaine Kentucky, April 10, 1897. The family moved to the State of Washington at the turn of the century, and then to Canada a few years later, to stake out a homestead in Calgary where Karl went to school high school, dropped out, and later returned to graduate and became a student to the University of Washington. There he became interested joining the Army, but was underage, and went to Canada, lied about his age, and was accepted. Shortly thereafter, his father came up to Canada to return him home. He spent five days in the guardhouse waiting for discharge, and a one-way ticket to Seattle. Angry with his parents he did not return home but supported himself through working in a grocery store, a bank, and Union Oil Company as a ledger clerk. When he turned eighteen, and with his parents’ approval, joined the American Army. He and two other recruits immediately became replacements for the First Infantry Division and Teddy Roosevelt, Jr.’s battalion in New York.

He was among the first troops to land in France, and the first Americans in the Verdun offensive. He helped take Cantigny and Montdidier, and later participated in the Soissons-Chateau Thierry battle and Verdun, where he wounded by German machine gun fire. Wounded in both arms and the left leg he fell into a ditch. Once he came to, he could see how serious his injuries were, but his only treatment was iodine, something every soldier carried. Two days later and remembering nothing of the intervening days, he found himself in a basement with some other casualties. After cleaning his wounds, medics evacuated him to Paris to have his wounds surgically cleaned. They told him he was there for eight days, but he did not remember it. He then was taken to Dijon for treatment of gangrene. His strongest memory is waking up to discover that one of his fingers missing in an effort to save his hand and arm from gangrene. Seven days later the doctors came to inform him that they were considering amputating his arm if the gangrene infection did not stop. It did, and he moved on to Beauvais for convalescence. This French hospital, operated by the Americans, came to have a very special place in Holton’s memory. He met a young French nurse who wrote and spoke English. Because of his wounds, he was unable to write letters home to his parents so the young woman, helped him with the task. They became friends, and even when he returned home, there was always a special place for the kind young woman who had looked after him while he regained his health. He never forgot her.

Because of his injuries he could not return to combat, but was asked to take over central records office at Bourges to locate to identify every American in France, and their occupation. After the war, he returned home to Washington, and to College where he got married. He supported himself and wife by working for Robert Dollar Steam Ship Lines as a wharfing hand for $250 per month. He reportedly studied for class while coming and going on the streetcar. He studied business and personnel administration, and worked for the Dollar Steamship line until he graduated. Then with wife and child, he moved to Los Angeles to study at the University of Southern California in 1923. Things did not work out as planned and he went to work for his father who was now involved in real estate. He did not like real estate sales, so he began looking for other work.

His sister had just married a man who had a job as probation officer. It sounded interesting to Karl so his brother-in-law, and a friend John Zuck, later chief probation officer took him down to the Department of Charities who operated probation services for the court. The incumbent at the time was man named Holland, the Superintendent of Schools in Pasadena and Chief Probation Officer for Los Angeles. The Department was small, unorganized, and as Holton once quipped, Did not amount to much, with only about a hundred people including clerks. The Supervisor was a man named Prescott. He had been a telephone lineman and had an eighth grade education. Holton took a short written test, passed it, and given an immediate appointment. It was not surprising since he was rare creatures among probation officers at that time; he was a college graduate.

Holton described juvenile probation supervision as almost non-existent, since you just release kids. There was no real supervision, no foster homes, and no private institutions. Court reports consisted of school records, police report - - elementary records. There was no municipal court probation, and very little service to the superior court. His assessment of the time was that you couldn’t make any difference. So, in a last ditch effort he approached the Superintendent of schools and proposed that they meet regularly, along with other interested parties like the police, health department, sheriff’s office, and appropriate schools as a case conference or planning group to coordinate services to juveniles on probation. Reluctantly the Superintendent agreed, and they formed the first coordinating council in the City. Even though he was working 70-80 hour weeks, he enrolled at USC and took classes in sociology, psychology, and law related to juveniles.

Karl was desperate to find help anywhere he could. To his surprise, he discovered many important people who were interested in doing something about probation. Shortly thereafter, his boss dropped dead and he became the head of the juvenile probation division. At the same time, Ken Scudder, former Superintendent of the Whittier Reformatory, became the first Chief Probation Officer for Los Angeles, California. In spite of a very good reputation, he was let go as the Superintendent of Whittier, probably because of his health. He suffered from chronic emphysema, and later let go by Los Angeles, County.

According to Holton Scudder was a creative, energetic man who was excellent at staff training, recruitment, public relations, and management. Unfortunately, serious ill health forced him to miss work for extended periods, and later rendered it impossible to work. He never returned to the job, and Karl Holton became Chief Probation Officer, he in turn appointed John Zuck as his Chief Deputy, and put Don Sanson in charge of adult services. Following these appointments, the County Probation Service reorganized into geographic districts for both juvenile and adult. Each district had its own supervisor to coordinate services. Karl Holton developed a recognizable form of administrative structure with clearly defined points of responsibility and accountability. Yet, there was still much that needed doing if a modern probation service was to emerge. Serious attention would be required in the areas of professional training for staff, and new employees.

The department turned to USC to develop a curriculum for juvenile court law. The L.A. probation department had no one on staff that could even draw up a proper and legal petition for the court. The University of Southern California provided some basic, actually primitive courses on interviewing, development of social histories, etc. They were not that helpful, but they tried. Having at least given some direction by the university, Holton decided that training would eventually have to be in house, so he relied on Ken Scudder to put together the best training courses he could. Training received a new priority and things improved, little by little, and eventually became one of the better probation training efforts.

Early in the 1930’s and a new problem came on the scene, transient youth. Hundreds of young people had left home because of the economy. Generally, it was the oldest boy in a large family that took to riding the rods in search of a job or some kind of opportunity. They flooded the railroad yards coming in by boxcar, and then spreading out all over the city. Their numbers taxed everyone’s resources, particularly probation. When probation was involved, they kept them in tents, but could only handle about sixty. Staff wanted to intervene in some way that would be helpful. Tent city gave them a place to sleep, and staff found them menial jobs where they could earn fifty cents a day. When they had saved enough, staff put them on freight trains with cooking accommodations and sent them back home, they hoped. Everyone felt guilty, since many of them did not have homes to which they could return. Our collective guilt forced us to explore other options. Holton had a friend who ran a polytechnic school of agriculture near San Luis Obispo. He also operated a farm where he could hire young people to work. He established one other farm unit and a third in Los Angeles. The farms were our first version of a work program for youth. The kids did lots of good public work, built roads, cleared fire trails, and even urban cleanups to be busy. We added educational and recreational programs, called them camps. The county continued to pay them fifty cents a day, and when left they left with $40 or $50 in their pocket, had a place to go to that we arranged for, and a job - - paid for by local tax money, and no one objected.

Holton brought Heman Stark into the Los Angeles Probation office to handle the transient youth program. The court made him a sort-of unofficial referee, or assistant in charge of county camps; his exact title was unclear. His job was to stay close to everything, know where the county had vacancies for placement, and job for the youth. He was all over the place, so much so, that he could not be easily located. According to Holton, Stark had a reputation for playing golf and shooting ducks out in the San Fernando Valley with friends during working hours. Legend has it that Holton called Stark in and Asked him if he wanted to work or not? If he did, he would work a full eight hour a day, not four, and would be placed in an office next to his so he would know where the hell he was at all times. Stark accepted the offer and still had the title of Executive Secretary for the Interstate Compact for Runaway Youth twenty years later when I joined the Youth Authority as a trainee in 1951.

Holton remained the Chief Probation Officer of Los Angeles County until he accepted Governor Olson’s appointment to join O.H. Close, and Harold Slane on a three man Commission to form a Youth Authority Board in 1941. Two years later, he became the first Director of the Youth Authority, and Chairman of the Board.

Earlier in this history, the reader learned about a beautiful young nurse in France who looked after Karl Holton’s convalescence from wounds suffered in WWI. The story went unfinished until the end of 1943 when Holton became the Director of the California Youth Authority. It is worth the telling now. It tells something of the man, but it is Marie-Louise Solaja’s story.

My first encounter with Mr. Holton was in 1943 on the night train to Los Angeles. He was commuting home to Los Angeles, and I was going to visit my fiancé in Arizona (a flyer shipping out to the Pacific). He was a nice fatherly looking man who had come over to sit with me. He apologized if he was intruding, but explained that I reminded him of someone he knew in war, and many years ago. He explained that he was at the American Hospital in Beauvais during WWI. He wondered if this young woman, and his nurse who had written letters home for him during WWI, might be related.

Surprised, she told him that her mother was at that hospital because she could speak, read, and write English. He felt sure that the woman was my mother since I looked very much as she had then. I got off the train in Los Angeles and Mr. Holton saw me to my train for Arizona. It was a very unusual meeting, and one that I soon forgot. My fiancé had been on lock down because of shipment, and I never saw him again. He crashed in Burma and neither his plane nor his body found. I lost my one great love.

Don Cramer hired me in 1947 to serve as his secretary in the Institutions and Camps Branch. When I reported to work, I learned I was not only serving as secretary to Mr. Cramer, but providing clerical services for the Supervisor of Camps, Food Administrator and Engineer as well. I put myself to the task of finding help, and we got another intermediate steno to help. I had been working there for some time when Mr. Holton came in. He looked at me for a moment, and then said, How did you get here? To be truthful, I barely remembered our meeting on the train and had no idea he was Director of the YA. He did not hire me, and to the best of my knowledge, he never met my mother. In any event, he always liked to tell people that my mother had been his nurse, or at least, that was what he liked to believe. He also liked to believe that he hired me as his secretary. He did not, but Mr. Stark did after he became Director.

I worked for Mr. Cramer until the clinics opened in 1954 when he went to NRCC as the first superintendent. Hal Butterfield was his replacement. Mr. Stark lured him from Riverside County Probation Department with the understanding he would eventually be appointed Chief Deputy Director. I am not sure what happened, but after a year or so Mr. Butterfield became superintendent at Nelles and Bill Tregoning became Chief Deputy Director. When Mr. Holton retired from state service and returned to Los Angeles, Mr. Stark hired me as his secretary, and I stayed with him throughout his two terms, followed by Allen Breed, and then Pearl West. Allen was able to get an exempt position of Executive Assistant for me. I ended my career as Chief of Management Analysis and later a Career Executive Appointment as Chief of Administrative Services where I remained until I retired. After that, I worked as a Consultant to the Director of the Lottery setting up policies and procedures until my mother broke her hip in 1988. I do not think she ever believed that she was truly that nurse in Beauvais. Nevertheless, Mr. Holton did, or at least he said that it was what he liked to believe.

As for M-L, she is still as beautiful as Mr. Holton saw her and her mother to be. In retirement, she continues to live in the house in which she grew up, and contributes her services and skill to her many friends, and community in Jackson, California.

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Nineteen hundred and forty-one through forty-two were fragile years for the Youth Authority. Direction was uncertain, WWII was underway, and we were a nation at war. The public at large had little enthusiasm for social innovations or programs not directly related to the war. Even so, the California legislature created a Youth Corrections Authority Act, which aspired to a great deal of social reform for youth corrections. Without much support, even less funding, a commission of three men was to design, organize, an implement an organization that had never existed before. They were to do so in the midst of a worldwide war that in time, would take to our men, women, and resources to virtually every point of the globe. It was not a propitious time to begin a new social experiment in youth corrections in California, but try they did; and they succeeded.

During the next four years, the country called over 16 million men and women to serve in the US Military. Man or womanpower became a scarce resource for business and industry, and almost non-existent for corrections. Nevertheless, for some, challenge is opportunity by a different name. Holton and crew took the opportunity to reshape the initial legislation into something more workable, and then begin to do the things required to improve the quality of youth correctional services.

In 1942 the first ward committed under the Youth Corrections Authority Act —YA No.00001 was committed to the new diagnostic unit at Preston. The prisoner went to San Quentin for second-degree murder at age 14. The Warden refused to place the boy on the main line at San Quentin and kept him in his home outside the prison until the Youth Authority legislation passed. In Karl Holton’s oral history of this period, he reports, the kid arrived at Preston in a ten gallon hat and cowboy suit. It took him some time to realize he was no longer a star in the prison world. It took him about a month to settle down to earth. He also observed that it was interesting how a committed felon could end up in a new youth agency to which he was never legally sentenced. He mused, Maybe common sense does have a place in the administration of criminal justice." The Youth Authority gave Barney Lee an honorable discharge in September of 1952. Several years after his discharge he returned to Preston to visit staff. He brought his several children with him.

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During 1942 and the first half of 1943 the Authority engaged in observation and study of delinquency problems in the State in addition to a limited amount of diagnostic work. In the first fifteen months of business, the Authority set up a skeleton organization that gathered data from the criminal courts on the number and kind of dispositions on young offender to estimate probable workloads for the new agency. They also recruited Dr. Burton Castner, a psychologist who was Director of Institutions in New Jersey to organize an experimental reception and diagnostic center, at the Preston School of Industry where O.H. Close was still superintendent. According to Castner, and Close they Shanghaide a Dr. Reilly, and two or three other people for the next year and a half. Harold Slane, the junior member of the commission, assumed the responsibility to carry out an educational campaign throughout the State making use of his many contacts with the legislature, and the political community. However, the most significant change was the governor turning over the State’s three correctional schools to the Authority to administer something that the original act did not contemplate.

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At the beginning of 1942 Whittier had blown high wide and handsome. The Governor had appointed a number of superintendents, and even brought in Father Flannigan of Boys’ Town for help. He returned home one week later, and left his brother-in-law there to run the school. One month later, he returned home. Four more acting directors were appointed, and all failed to gain control of the school. Something had to change. The newspapers and everyone else who had an interest in youth corrections were up in arm, and according to reports, raising political hell.

Governor Olson contacted Slane and Close and told them to meet him at the State Office in Los Angeles. He also told Holton to come over from his office. The three commission members, the Governor, and the Director of Institutions, Dr. Rosanoff, who was in charge of the three correctional schools, had no sooner seated themselves than the Governor asked the new commission members if they would take over the Whittier School. Dr. Rosanoff said he would be happy to transfer responsibility. Holton said, No! No one had legal authority to transfer the schools to anyone, including the Governor. The Welfare and Institutions Code was clear on who was responsible for administering Whittier. Besides, the Youth Authority was not an operating agency.

According to Holton, (see the Earl Warren Oral History of the California Youth Authority, Bancroft Library, University of California), Governor Olson proposed that the Youth Authority would administer the school, for Dr. Rosanoff, providing everyone agreed to the following conditions:

1. A signed agreement from the Governor and Dr. Rosanoff that Dr. Rosanoff would immediately follow any recommendation for the administration and operation of Whittier made by the Authority.

2. That the Governor and Dr. Rosanoff would ask the Personnel Board to call an immediate meeting to schedule an examination for a permanent Superintendent for the Whittier School.

3. That they would agree to appoint the successful candidate from the examination recommended by the Youth Authority.

4. The fourth condition was that the new superintendent would, prior to appointment, detail, in writing, the program he was expected to implement, e.g., policies, operation of school, personnel practices, plan for organizational structure, and discipline, staff and delinquents for the Authority’s review and approval, and when accepted, agreement that the Authority could enforce them without interference.

The Governor and Dr. Rosanoff accepted the conditions and gave the Authority a signed copy for the record. Sixty days later an examination took place for a permanent Superintendent for the Whittier School for Boys. The Authority could not wait for sixty days to act so Paul McKusick, a former superintendant of a Los Angeles County Probation Camp, and currently the Assistant Director of the Probation Advisory Service of the State Department of Social Welfare, accepted an immediate interim appointment as acting Superintendent of Whittier. Colleagues described him as courageous, well educated, brilliant, and with nerves of steel. He passed the civil service examination as number 1, and became the permanent Superintendant of Whittier. He remained for seven years before moving on to the Preston School of Industry as its superintendant. We ran Whittier on an ad hoc basis for one year reporting to Dr. Rosanoff, who never visited the school again.

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Earl Warren became Governor in 1943 he called Holton into his office make it clear he intended to reorganize State government, particularly the Youth Authority. He wanted Holton’s help and support to develop a Youth Authority that got headlines about how well it worked, not its incompetence. He wanted to know what needed to be done, and how quickly. Holton repeated his previous concerns about the need for the law to require a single administrator, and vague goals and ambitions replaced with specific duties and responsibilities. The Governor assured Holton that the changes would happen. To guarantee it, he asked Helen MacGregor, his Executive Secretary, to work closely with Holton, and the legislative committee.

A few days later, Holton returned to Sacramento work with Assemblyman Franklin Potter, and his twenty-five man committee to study the law, examines three tentative budget proposals, and develops a Youth Authority Act that California could enact and fund. Holton reported that he had never seen a legislative committee work harder. Every member attended every meeting and frequently worked until midnight or later. With the help of staff from the legislature, the Attorney General’s Office, and William Tregoning who was instrumental in getting the new Youth Authority bill passed. He was good at organizing records,