The question was asked of me regarding this interview: Why did my student who was sent to the California Youth Authority not have a blanket in the first place; and shouldn't the authorities be held accountable? The answer is found in the words of a corrections administrator from a neighboring state who I spoke with recently: "The entire system in California is broken; nothing is working." Our state has 200,000+ men and women locked up on any given day. The dangerous and degrading situations for (and also caused by) inmates in our prisons (including the Youth Authority), are equaled by the infighting and degrading behavior by the administrators who run them and the judges who handcuff any reform attempts to genuinely change the prison system. Logistics get snarled; the flood of new prisoners overruns the system's ability to provide for them, and a new inmate missing a blanket - in the entire scheme of things - would be considered no big deal by the people who are struggling to keep these places from exploding. The Youth Authority, as I mentioned, is "prison for kids": extremely violent and dangerous. It is NOT your local juvenile hall. Serving ages 10-25, you do not get sent to the Youth Authority until you've either killed, raped, kidnapped, etc., or been arrested so many dozens of times at the county level that there's no other option. Situations such as "selling" one inmate to another to serve you as a slave, having sex in garbage dumpsters, violent inmate-on-inmate beatings etc., are common occurrences in the Youth Authority, just like in prison. This entire issue of crime&punishment - prevention&cure of criminal behavior, is a situation that cries out for pro-active, fearless, spiritually radical engagement and healing on the part of any of us who claim to be Christians or Christian Scientists (and MBE said there was no difference). Our organization, Stronghold School Systems is working to heal these issues on a variety of levels. We'd welcome your interest: (805) 701.2999

Paul White