Greg Zermeno

Greg Zermeno has been working his way up through the ranks of the California Youth Authority for 28 years. He could hardly have known that when he made it to the top job, he would find himself in a hot seat indeed.

Zermeno, 52, was appointed director in March after his predecessor was removed following an investigation of sexual misconduct at the Ventura School in Camarillo, the only coed facility of the CYA’s 15 institutions.

In a scathing analysis, a state inspector general reported that Ventura School had “a systemic problem” of lax management that allowed sexual misconduct by employees and inmates to continue, and resulted in unfair treatment and sexual harassment of women employees. The inspector noted “a climate of fear among employees,” a system slow to react to chronic problems and an extraordinary 64 misconduct investigations by internal affairs in 1998 alone.

Zermeno has moved quickly to replace that climate of fear with an open-door policy--and to replace several of the top officials at Ventura School. To take charge, he is drawing on skills learned throughout his career.

Born in Salinas to a father who emigrated from Mexico and a mother born in the United States, he attended public schools and junior college. He recalls being “a typical wise guy high school student. I was bright enough that I didn’t have to work too hard for my grades. I played a lot and had a lot of fun.” But his life with the youth authority never included the role of client.

At 19, married and in need of a job, he landed work as a combination cook and counselor in a small juvenile hall in Monterey County.

“I didn’t know how to cook but I learned real quick,” he says.

He also had a lot to learn about the rest of the job.

“I had no idea what juvenile delinquency was, who juvenile offenders were, or anything else.”

He describes that experience as “a very family-run kind of operation. Things were very relaxed. I loved Salinas and I loved the job. But the superintendent aggressively encouraged me to get the hell out of there and get an education, finish up my degree. So he assisted me in getting a job at Santa Clara County Juvenile Hall.”

There he worked evenings and went to school during the day. After earning a degree in sociology / corrections management from San Jose State, he landed a job with the CYA in 1971.

“I was a parole agent on the east side of San Jose--an economically deprived, somewhat tough area. Then I just progressed up the ladder. I now have 28 years in the youth authority, 14 of those as superintendent of various institutions.

“I like the people I’ve worked with at every facility and I like the challenges of working with these young folks.”

He spoke last week with Times editors Doug Adrianson and Sarah Holeman.

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Question: It’s been two months since Gov. Gray Davis placed you in command of the California Youth Authority. What marching orders did he give you, and what steps have you taken so far?

Answer: When I met with the governor, his marching orders were very clear. He expects an efficient operation that deals--directly and indirectly--with the protection of the public. I am to make all necessary enhancements and continue things that speak to those directives.

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Q: In a nutshell, what is the job description of the CYA director?

A: The No. 1 priority is to ensure the implementation of the Youth Authority Act, which specifically states that it is my responsibility to run the entire operations of the CYA in terms of personnel, policy, budget; to enhance public safety through education programming and any other aspect I think is necessary to meet that goal.

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Q: What progress have you made toward correcting the problems at Ventura School? What remains to be done?

A: A number of things have been done. No. 1, there has been a complete change in administrative staff. We have a new chief of security. We now have two assistant superintendents instead of one--one for females, one for males. We have a new superintendent, Greg Lowe. Greg Lowe has gone in with his group and met with all the staff and started a number of committees. The essence of his approach is to ensure a close working relationship with the line staff and the administration so that gap between those two levels is really narrowed down and so there’s an open-door policy. Everybody agrees about the reason they are there: to do their job.

In addition, as you know, we have had a number of investigations. Most of those have been concluded now. In this past month, five to seven staff members were assigned to Ventura School solely to conclude the investigations, to ensure that they were adequate, complete, fair and professional.

I have gone down to Ventura School--I’ve often visited Ventura in my 14 years as a superintendent, so visiting was not a new experience for me but it is new to visit as the director. Once you have a title, I’m discovering, even though I feel the same and my perspective is the same, people’s behavior toward me is different. That’s a growing experience, I guess, for me.

The first time my goal was just to spend a lot of time walking around, talking to staff as they were doing their duties, introducing myself, just getting the lay of the land. As a second visit, I did kind of a town hall meeting with the majority of the staff, and we engaged in a real good exchange of ideas, questions and answers.

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Q: You’ve worked with California’s juvenile offenders for three decades. Describe how the challenges have changed during that time, and what forces are driving that change.

A: The challenges mainly come from two forces. One is demographics; you have an increased minority population. The other is the change of offenders in the youth authority; you have a significantly harder population in terms of offenses. The great majority of wards who come to us now have drug backgrounds, violent backgrounds, family discord backgrounds. Some of the young men who come to the youth authority have kids of their own, which is a significant issue that concerns us because many of these young men have not had good experiences with parenting. They have not been raised as we would like to be raised, in middle-class society, so we undertake to teach them how to parent. That’s not an easy task.

The corollary to that is the staff profile has changed. Educational requirements for staff have increased. The majority of the staff we have hired over the past five or 10 years have degrees, and our expectations of what staff do have increased, in terms of professionalism, in terms of having the ability to converse and deal with significantly tough situations.

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Q: There’s been debate in recent years about the trend toward trying youths as young as 12 in adult court if they are accused of committing very violent offenses. Do you believe there is any minimum age at which adult court is inappropriate?

A: I think the current policy of 14 is about appropriate. The issue is, whether he’s tried as a juvenile or as an adult, either place he has to be held accountable. The two things you need to do with young people is hold them accountable and, once you do that and you’ve established a relatively safe environment for staff and wards, then you provide some significant treatment. You try to get to the point that, when they leave you, they’re better off than when they came in.

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Q: It’s said that once a child enters the system, he or she is likely to be trapped for life. What do you do to prevent criminalizing them?

A: The recidivism rate of the youth authority actually took a dip last year, probably for the first time, and we’re proud of that. How you do that treatment is, you provide an education. You provide opportunity. You cannot force a young man to do good or to change. If he chooses not to change, then he has to reap the consequence of that behavior. And the consequence is an escalating amount of time that he’s going to do, or that he’s going to be away from his family and so forth.

For the majority of the guys, who want to enter in some program elements, you have education, you have vocational trades taught, you have a lot of treatment, you have medical and psychiatric services. You deal with things like parenting, you deal with things like gang orientation, you deal with things like anger management--but you make them accountable. As they get older, you make sure that they have a concept of what they owe the community. Our goal is to protect the community, protect the public, service those young men and also ensure that they start thinking differently.

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Q: On the prevention side, what seem to be the most effective strategies for steering young people away from trouble with the law?

A: I wouldn’t be so bold as to suggest that there is a way, or that I know that way. But I believe that people who have families that are supportive, who hold their kids accountable, who ensure that their kids are taught certain basic work ethics, basic commitment to being law-abiding, makes a heck of a lot of difference. I believe that parents who work with elementary school teachers will see issues as they are beginning to develop, and that’s the time to head it off.

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Q: How will you go about rebuilding the public’s faith in the youth authority?

A: The youth authority is legislated to provide a service of protection of the community. And you do that by getting all staff to share the perspective that your No. 1 goal is to provide a safe and constructive environment--whether you’re talking about institutions or parole or any other aspect--and then you provide services to each individual to ensure that the guy is a little better off when he leaves than when he came in.

You do that with good staff. There’s not a doubt in my mind that 98% of the youth authority staff is very fine. Then you have about 2% of the staff who are wrongdoers, who have engaged in totally inappropriate and unacceptable behavior. My job, with that 2%, is to provide a fair and adequate investigation and then to take assertive action to ensure that that does not happen again.