ABSTRACT
Jim, a seventeen-year-old boy in a California Youth Authority (CYA) institution, summed up CYA's grievance procedure: "Without grievance, we wouldn't have rights. California's experiment with a ward grievance procedure in Youth Authority institutions is a middle way to protect inmate rights on issues the courts cannot easily handle. The danger of reprisal is especially great in states like California, where, sentences were indeterminate or open-ended. Robert Mabbutt suggested that any state considering a grievance mechanism should first look to California, fully explore its system, and then, if it decides to go ahead, make an effort to convince its own correctional staff that the grievance procedure will benefit them. The fact that the grievance procedure is institutionalized – that is, the grievant has rights within the procedure–encourages expression and resolution of conflict rather than repression and outburst. The grievance procedure has some incidental advantages in addition to its value as a means of dispute resolution.
