A packed dorm at the Fred C. Nelles Correctional Facility in the 1990s, an era when California’s youth prisons held roughly 10,000 teens and adolescents. Photo by Joseph Rodriguez.
By Nell Bernstein, The Imprint, June 30, 2023
California’s three remaining youth prisons closed their reinforced steel doors for good today, marking the demise of what was once the nation’s largest network of youth prisons.
The closure of the state’s youth prison system, resulting from decades of activism, lawsuits, rising costs and a steep drop in youth crime, makes California the fourth state — and by far the largest — to abandon the model. Connecticut, South Dakota and Vermont have also closed their state-run youth prison systems in recent years.
Last week, there were just ten young people in facilities run by the California Division of Juvenile Justice. Nine left Monday and one was sent closer to home on Wednesday, officials said, emptying out a network of prisons that decades ago held as many as 10,000 youth.
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