BOOT-CAMP-STYLE RANCH GETS OK FOR NEW LICENSE

The Arizona Department of Economic Security reached agreement
Wednesday with the Arizona Boys Ranch, allowing the troubled
juvenile-offender rehabilitation program to renew its operating
license in exchange for significant changes.

Nicholaus Contreraz, 16, of Sacramento, died under its care March 2,
and last Thursday, a Pinal County grand jury indicted five former Boys
Ranch workers on child abuse and manslaughter charges.

Arraignment is set for Oct. 23.

In August, the department said it was not approving the Boys Ranch's
annual license renewal application. Boys Ranch officials filed an
appeal with the Arizona Office of Administrative Hearings, and a
hearing was set for Tuesday. Meanwhile, negotiations to renew the
license continued on a parallel track.

Department officials said the agreement reached Wednesday commits
Arizona Boys Ranch to a number of significant changes. Chief among
them: zero tolerance for abuse of the delinquent and troubled youth in
its care and custody.

At its height, the Arizona Boys Ranch provided housing, schooling and
intense rehabilitation for up to 600 juvenile offenders at seven
campuses statewide.

The appeal will be stayed but not dismissed, and the department will
closely monitor Boys Ranch operations to assure that the changes are
made and adhered to, assistant director James Hart said.

Earlier this year, California and Arizona investigators said they
found a pattern of abuse in Nicholaus' death at the facility's boot
camp-style training camp near Oracle.

``In the agreement it says if there are any additional instances of
abuse, we would act not only on those but on everything we have in our
files, and their history of abuse,'' Hart said.

Hart, one of the department's two chief negotiators in the talks that
resulted in the settlement agreement, said new Boys Ranch officials,
including chairman Robert H. Johnson, brought a commitment to change.

Copyright 1998 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Checked-by: Patrick Henry