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There's No Fear in Her

Catholic Mother Takes On California Youth Authority

BY BARTHOLOMEW JAMES

When violence broke out between two angry young men, and immediately the canisters of Mace hissed to the floor, Shariffe Vaughn knew he was a world away from his Sacramento home. He had spent only two days at the Preston Youth Correctional Facility in Amador County, and already a fight had broken out. The 17-year-old had become a ward of the state, and his new home was a cramped dormitory building that held about 80 other youths, two to a bunk.

And then a chemical fog engulfed the dorm. While gas-masked guards attempted to isolate the combatants, Vaughn covered his face with a towel and hunkered down on the floor next to his bunk.

When a fight broke out, the rules mandated that wards had to stay on their bunks, or they would be considered part of the altercation and subject to the harsh punishment that Vaughn would learn is a key component of life behind the California Youth Authority bars.

Other young prisoners attempted to get fresh air through small spaces in the bar-covered windows. But getting to a window required leaving the bed, and that was a rule violation. "That's when staff grabs them and starts hitting them," explained Vaughn.

The gas is designed by the manufacturer to be used outdoors to break up riots, but guards in the Youth Authority routinely misused the chemicals in dorms, cells, and other enclosed spaces, according to several state government reports. Because the chemical agents absorb the oxygen in the surrounding air space, when used indoors, there is a real danger that inmates could asphyxiate, warned one report. Vaughn agreed that it is indeed hard to breath in a dorm full of chemical fog. "It burns your eyes, you can't see, you can't breathe, and you've got snot and boogers coming out of your nose," he said. In addition, any exposed skin has an intense burning sensation. In some cases, skin will later peel off as a result of the chemical exposure, especially when youths are not given timely access to showers after being sprayed.

Over the three-and-a-half years that Vaughn was in the Youth Authority, he estimates that he was gassed about 20 times. On several occasions, he said, he was gassed as punishment while locked in a cell, even though Youth Authority regulations prohibit the use of chemicals for punishment or retaliation. Vaughn also noticed that guards who were exposed to gas were allowed to go home, with pay. "They do it on purpose sometimes so they can go home. That's what I believe," he said.

Vaughn was sent to the Youth Authority for reform and rehabilitation by Sacramento County for his role in a burglary committed with two other teens. Any reform or rehabilitation he received in the Youth Authority was mostly inadvertent. He initially was told he would serve about 18 months, provided he stayed out of trouble and completed courses in parenting, anger management, victim awareness, and drug and alcohol education. However, well before the 18 months passed, Vaughn was given numerous extensions to his sentence, known as time add-ons, for various rule violations, including fighting.

Vaughn claims that most of his rule violations and time add-ons were unjustified, and the Youth Authority's own internal studies admit that the system is rife with arbitrary and paradoxical disciplinary procedures. For example, time add-ons are given for failure to complete classes, yet wards confined to lockup units are unable to attend classes.

As a result, Vaughn's sentence eventually was maxed out, meaning he would not be released until he turned 21. Because he was shuttled between four different Youth Authority facilities and was held locked in a cell for 23 hours a day for much of his sentence, he never attended any rehabilitative courses or classes. The soft-spoken, bespectacled Vaughn points out that, because at six feet, five inches and 230 pounds, he is physically imposing and had the close support of his family throughout his stay in the Youth Authority, things could have been a lot worse. More than once he watched as more vulnerable prisoners were beaten, Maced, and held in solitary cells. He witnessed medication being forced on one ward held in a suicide cell across from his own cell. "They went in there, five or six staff, grabbed him, beat the crap out of him, then tied his arms down and put a needle in him," he said.

Although the California Youth Authority conditions were difficult for Shariffe Vaughn, they were considerably more traumatic for his mother, Caron. Caron had to endure her son's graphic recitations of day-to-day prison life during her visits with him at Youth Authority facilities, and in phone calls and letters home. The conditions Shariffe described dramatically contradicted what his mother had expected. "On the [Youth Authority] website they make it sound like it's such a safe, helpful environment," she said. Unlike the adult prison system, the California Youth Authority is required by state law to rehabilitate and reform, and not punish, all wards entrusted to its care. The Youth Authority website lists ward and parolee programs that provide drug and alcohol, mental and emotional, and sex offender treatment and counseling. Wards can also obtain a high school diploma, do college course work for an Associate of Arts Degree, and get vocational work experience, according to the agency. At the time of her son's conviction, Caron was concerned that she was losing him to the streets and believed that a year or two of structured education and counseling might be just what he needed. But not long after Shariffe entered the Youth Authority, she quickly concluded that the state's promises of rehabilitation were hollow.

Caron also learned that Shariffe's experiences were not unique, and after hearing similar stories of abuse and mistreatment from other parents, her motivation extended beyond concern for her own son. She set out to learn all she could about the system and who was responsible for running it. In particular, the high level of youth suicides within the system caught her attention, and she eventually teamed up with other parents and youth advocacy organizations that were pressuring the Youth Authority for systemic reforms. Caron began calling and writing letters to Youth Authority officials and contacting state legislators, and even though she was mostly stonewalled by the Davis administration and then-California Youth Authority director Jerry Harper, when the governorship changed hands in November 2003, things gradually began to change for the better.

Last spring, she had a brief face-to-face interaction with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and has had ongoing, productive contact with the new Youth Authority director, Walter Allen. Last September, shortly after Shariffe was released from custody, the mother and son had a sit-down meeting with Allen at his Sacramento office. Allen seemed sincerely interested in Shariffe's impressions of life within the system, and Caron's concerns for the kids still in custody. "As I told her on many occasions, it's unfortunate because CYA has been neglected so many years that it was allowed to get into the state it has been in the past year. We're really trying to make an effort, and as I told her and she understands it, the problems have been going on for a number of years, and as much as we would like to, we're not going to rectify some of the problems overnight," Allen explained.

Two months after Allen met with the Vaughns, the governor and Allen announced they were settling a long-running lawsuit against the Youth Authority, which listed an array of problems, including many experienced by Shariffe. The state essentially admitted that the issues it had ignored or denied were real, and the Youth Authority is now bound by a 22-page court order that lays out in minute detail the massive number of reforms that the Youth Authority must implement. The changes will be closely overseen by a court-appointed monitor and an Alameda County superior court judge. The court supervision of the Youth Authority will continue until the system comes into compliance with the reform and rehabilitation mandates of state law, a process expected to take years. Last month, a supplemental court order was issued that lays out a specific timetable for implementation of reforms in medical care, education, mental health, ward safety, and welfare.

Caron credits her Irish-Catholic upbringing and education with instilling in her an intense compassion for the disadvantaged and underprivileged. Living in poverty, her family often had to rely on the free food distributed by Father Dan Madigan's Sacramento Food Bank. "We didn't have that much growing up. And after I was married, me, my husband and my children -- my God, some of the times if it weren't for Father Madigan and Sacramento Food Bank, I don't even know how we would have survived," she explained. But she did survive and years later would become a food bank volunteer. She later honed her community activist skills, holding her local school board accountable, and them circumstances dictated that she confront the California Youth Authority. Last month, she attended a vigil at the state capitol on the two-year anniversary of the suicide deaths of two Youth Authority wards and was interviewed by a British television documentary team. The hour-long program will be broadcast in England in March.

Father Madigan attributes Caron's ability to confront a seemingly overwhelming bureaucracy like the Youth Authority to her deep spirituality. "She's a person with a lot of integrity, honesty, and strength, and she's not afraid," he said. "There's no fear in her. If she thought somebody was wrong, she'd take them on. That's why I say she's a very spiritual person; I mean she will not compromise with her conscience, and she will not compromise with what she thinks is right. And she certainly will not play any kind of politics," he explained. Father Madigan also believes that Caron is often underestimated by her opponents. "They probably don't give her enough credit because they know she comes from a poor background. I mean, when you think of where she came from and what she fought over those years in the raising of her family and living under the conditions she lived under! But she has always fought to do the right thing."

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