The state Personnel Board decided Tuesday to reinstate correctional officers caught on tape beating inmates in Stockton's N.A. Chaderjian Youth Correctional Facility.

Six correctional officers were caught on surveillance cameras hitting two young wards in January 2004. The guards, supported by the correctional officers union, appealed the California Youth Authority's decision to fire them and received a judge's recommendation to get their jobs back.

A video was released in April last year, due in part to state Sen. Gloria Romero's push for more transparency in the correctional system.

"I am very disappointed with the decision today," said Romero, D-Los Angeles. "But we won't be deterred by this in our efforts to eradicate the code of silence and excessive use of force in the system."

The youth system was given a failing grade from the state's Office of the Inspector General. The Stockton facility, commonly known as Chad, recently lost its high school accreditation, and its superintendent was fired for using excessive force against a ward. An OIG report in May stated that counselors only spent 10 percent of their time counseling because they are "busy with security functions."

The video, which can be seen at Ella Baker Center For Human Rights' Web site http://www.ellabakercenter.org, shows a young man on the ground with his hands behind his back and a guard kneeling on him, hitting him in the face 28

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times. A second guard kicked another youth in the stomach while four other correctional officers watched. Another employee sprays the wards with Mace.

"This decision is an outrage, and it's an insult to all Californians," said Lenore Anderson, director of Oakland-based Books Not Bars, which has been vocal about shutting down California's youth prisons.

Lance Corcoran, state executive vice president of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, which represents 31,000 members with 2,500 employees in the juvenile facilities, said that the six officers should get their jobs back at Chad.

He said the video does not tell the whole story and that the beating was precipitated by an assault by wards.

A representative from Division of Juvenile Justice, formerly known as the CYA, said they may appeal the decision.

"While we strongly disagree with the decision, we respect the process that got us to this point," said Roderick Hickman, secretary of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

"I was so disgusted that they let the guards off like that. This is saying to all the parents, 'I don't give a damn about your kids,'" said Barbara Jackson of Families for Books Not Bars and grandmother of a former CYA inmate who is now in an adult prison.

Contact Momo Chang at mchang@angnewspapers.com.