Ventura youth facility to remain all female
By Daniel Wolowicz camarillo@theacorn.com

Thanks in large part to a speedy coalition between Camarillo officials and council members from surrounding cities, a Senate bill that would have allowed adult males to be housed at the Ventura Youth Correctional Facility for Girls in Camarillo was amended earlier this month to ensure the 160acre campus on Wright Road will remain an all-female juvenile facility.

The news came from City Manager Jerry Bankston during last week's council meeting.

Quick action by the council was necessary after city staff first heard in early July of state Sen. Gloria Romero's (D-Los Angeles) Senate Bill 1589. The bill was written in April to help trim the budget of the state Division of Juvenile Justice and ease crowding at other California youth facilities.

The bill was amended in late June to propose removing the girls and young women from the facility and returning male wards to the 44-year-old compound.

Representatives from across the county were concerned that even though the bill specified that only adult prisoners with minor convictions would be allowed at the local facility, it could have opened the door for more hardcore offenders to be housed there.

According to City Manager Jerry Bankston, Romero offered an apology to the Camarillo council after she received letters of opposition from six other cities, the Ventura County Board of Supervisors and the Ventura Council of Governments.

"The senator extended . . . her apologies for not having had direct contact with the council prior to even proposing the amendment," Bankston said. "She regretted it deeply."

Not only does the amendment block the transfer of adult prisoners to the facility, but it requires a vote by the California Legislature if the Division of Juvenile Justice decided to transfer the local facility to the Division of Adult Institutions.

According to officials in Romero's office, the bill awaits a final vote by the Senate before it heads to the governor's desk for approval.

Built in 1962, the Ventura facility is the only correctional detention center in California for female offenders between the ages of 13 and 25.

"It shows that every once in a while, if you get in there quick enough, and you can get someone who is willing to listen, that you have a chance of getting heard," Councilmember Charlotte Craven said.