The California Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ), previously known as the California Youth Authority (CYA), was a division of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation that provided education, training, and treatment services for California's most serious youth offenders, until its closure in 2023. These youths were committed by the juvenile and criminalcourts to DJJ's eleven correctional facilities, four conservation camps and two residential drug treatment programs. The DJJ provided services to juvenile offenders, ranging in age from twelve to 25, in facilities and on parole, and worked closely with law enforcement, the courts, district attorneys, public defenders, probation offices and other public and private agencies involved with the problems of youth. The DJJ underwent reorganization as required by a court agreement and the California State Legislature after widespread criticisms of conditions at its youth prisons. The agency's headquarters were in Sacramento, California.[2]
"To provide opportunities for growth and change by identifying and responding to the unique needs of our youth. We do this through effective treatment, education and interventions in order to encourage positive lifestyles, reduce recidivism, strengthen families and protect our communities."[3]
The DJJ was legally required to provide a high schooleducation for every ward who does not already have a diploma. However, students are sometimes kept from class because of safety and security situations or teacher vacancies. Validated gang associates are sometimes kept from classroom or vocational training for institutional safety and security reasons relative to gang tensions or conflict. Academic teachers and vocational instructors are credentialed through the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. The education area of the institution is referred to as the "Education Corridor" or "Trade Line", reflecting the vocational training focus of the institution. The Trade Line is monitored by security professionals known as "Youth Correctional Officers" (YCO). Students are escorted to the Trade Line from their living areas by "Youth Correctional Counselors" (YCC). The educational system in the DJJ is part of the California Department of Education, and each site is required to maintain accreditation through the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.
Conditions
On non-school days, maximum security inmates were locked in their cells for 23 hours a day. A spokesman for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's prisons department said lengthy lockdowns at DJJ facilities were no longer used as punishment, but were sometimes necessary to maintain order. One of the justifications for such treatment is gang affiliation and the threat of corresponding violence.
Many of the Youthful Offenders at some DJJ facilities arrived on or are placed on psychotropic medications, a matter that has triggered protests and litigation.
The threat of violence was a constant distraction at DJJ facilities. In 2004, a six-month investigation by the San Jose Mercury News uncovered deep systemic flaws, concluding that violence was predominant, gangs ruled, and fear was pervasive. The Mercury News reported that, at any given time, dozens of young men are held in isolation cells for fighting or other offenses at the state's two maximum security facilities, and that wards sometimes threw human waste, blood or semen through the slots in their cell doors.
Experts who have studied the prisons have declared them the most violent in the nation, and there have been six suicides in California's juvenile jails between 2000 and 2005.
In January 2005, Chief Deputy Inspector GeneralBrett Morgan issued a report calling for the elimination of 23-hour-a-day incarceration policies for wards placed in administrative segregation and criticized the DJJ for failing to end the practice. The inspector general's report outlines Maldonado's history and offers a portrait of Chaderjian as a violent lockup where gang leaders seem to have more clout than the Youth Correctional Officers.[citation needed]
Litigation
Beginning in 2000, CYA was featured regularly in news headlines across the state. Local and national media reported rampant violence, staff-on-ward beatings, canine attacks, multiple suicides, extended 23-hour lockdowns, and children attending classes while confined in cages. That year, a Sacramento federal judge rejected a class action suit on behalf of all CYA inmates, declaring they had failed to back up claims forming the basis of their bid for sweeping revisions of CYA policies and procedures.[4]
The judge did allow three defined groups of wards to sue in three specific categories of contention on constitutional grounds. Wards forcibly medicated with a psychotropic drug without a hearing were enabled to challenge CYA's forced drugging policy. Wards committed for sexual offenses were allowed to challenge sex offender treatment programs in which they were placed. Wards placed in isolation for their own safety without a hearing were also allowed to proceed with litigation.
In a separate lawsuit, the Prison Law Office complained that "Rehabilitation cannot succeed when the classroom is a cage and wards live in constant fear of physical and sexual violence from CYA staff and other wards."[5] In January 2002, a federal conditions lawsuit was filed against CYA by a coalition including the Prison Law Office. The suit was refiled In January 2003, as Farrell v. Harper (later renamed Farrell v. Hickman. The parties agreed to jointly select national experts to determine the nature and extent of the CYA's problems. By 2004, Governor Schwarzenegger had settled that lawsuit and pledged to make significant changes, but his administration has missed several court-imposed deadlines to implement reforms, including policies regarding suicide prevention, according to Specter. A special master was appointed to oversee reform implementation.
In 2001, another lawsuit against CYA prompted a San Francisco judge to direct the CYA to obtain licenses for all eleven of its health care facilities within two years.[6]
DJJ previously housed over 6,000 youths; now with court-ordered reforms, numbers are down by two-thirds. Plaintiff's attorneys who document these changes also note many changes in the conditions of confinement, health services, etc.
Its predecessor, CYA, had a $387 million annual budget as of 2004. Each year, well over 2,000 young offenders are admitted to DJJ, while a similar number are released. Most wards are committed for violent crimes, and are institutionalized for over two years on average, at a cost to the state of over $71,000 per inmate each year, an increase of over 130%, from $30,783 in 1990. In recent years, California's juvenile justice system has received intense and increasing criticism from experts nationwide for running draconian youth prisons.
The N.A. Chaderjian Youth Correctional Facility in Stockton is one of the CYA's two maximum security lockups and holds those aged 18–24, and was described as the home for the worst-of-the-worst juvenile offenders. Chaderjian, also known as "Chad", earned national headlines in 2004 "when guards were captured on film kicking and punching wards."[7]
In August 2005, 18-year-old Joseph Daniel Maldonado hanged himself at Chaderjian, sparking yet another round of outcries about conditions and calls for closure.[7] In the eight weeks before he died, Maldonado had rarely been let out of his cell and was denied family visits, mental health care, and educational services. A report by California's Office of the Inspector General states "the effects of this eight-week isolation and service deprivation may have contributed to the Ward’s suicide."[8]Don Specter, director of the Prison Law Office, was quoted as saying "This is the first report that directly links their [i.e., the guards'] practices with a death."[7]
The extended lockdown at the facility was contrary to the rehabilitative mission of the state's youth corrections system, according to state officials. Deputy Inspector Morgan said the eight-week lockdown was known about by at least two top-level juvenile corrections officials in Sacramento.
During lockdowns, wards are allowed showers three times a week, but are allowed no time to attend school, exercise or interact with mental health professionals.
The Prison Law Office website notes recent mission changes include reducing the number of the offenders and decreasing lockdowns. [citation needed] "It appears that the steps that CDCR and DJJ have taken since June 2007 have improved DJJ’s management effectiveness and the capacity of CDCR/DJJ business systems; however, issues of effectiveness and capacity continue to interfere with DJJ’s progress towards compliance with the remedial plans."
The same report notes that in 2007 Chad hired a Chief Psychologist, Dr. Eric Kunkel, who in turn brought on many more psychologists, licensed psychiatric technicians and psychiatrists to attend to youth needs.[9]
In 1913, girls were transferred to the newly established Ventura School for Girls from the formerly coed Whittier State Reformatory. The Ventura School for Girls moved from its Ventura location to Camarillo in 1962 and became co-educational in 1970.[10] The Ventura Youth Correctional Facility returned to being a females-only facility in 2004. The facility closed in 2023 and was shuttered.[11] The S. Carraway Public Service and Fire Protection Center was closed in 2011 and fire crews were consolidated in the Pine Grove facility.[12]
Foster grandparent programs
Because few parents participate, foster grandparents at DJJ facilities fill the role of surrogate parents. All foster grandparents receive training from Special Education Resource Specialists and multi-language training.
Reform
Juvenile Justice Division reports, spurred by litigation against the CYA, were released in January 2004. Their reports confirmed serious abuses and major deficiencies in virtually every aspect of the CYA's operation, and criticized the agency for failing in its rehabilitative and public safety mission. The experts found the CYA to be incompetent in every area reviewed: the safety of the facilities, the quality of education and health care, and the efficacy of the mental health, substance abuse and other treatment programs. The system, according to the experts, was not simply failing to rehabilitate, it was demonstrably inflicting damage on incarcerated youths, who were often discharged with increased criminal sophistication, entrenched gang involvement and exacerbated mental illness.
On September 1, 2005, DJJ submitted a report on youth corrections reform to the California Legislature. The report required DJJ to file quarterly reports on steps taken, using $1.2 million in fiscal year 2005-06 planning funds, toward implementing an overall reform plan, including any proposed changes in population, jurisdiction or length of stay or changes in state-local juvenile justice responsibilities and "specific objectives, tasks and timelines." However, DJJ presented no objectives, tasks or timelines for reform. Nor did it offer new plans to adjust the institutionalized population. Rather, DJJ said that "at this time" the department does not propose to change any state laws with respect to "jurisdictional eligibility criteria, including age, gender, offense criteria, medical or mental health needs or length of confinement".[13]
Criticism and calls for closure
There have been many calls to shut down DJJ/CYA altogether. A spate of such calls came in the wake of scandals arising after a video tape surfaced, in 2004, of a youth being punched in the head repeatedly by a guard at the Stockton facility and two youths dying there.[14]
Critics point to reports that over 90% of those released from DJJ (then CYA) ended up in adult prison, and that within three years five percent are dead and only four percent are in school or working. DJJ does have a ward data system, the Offender Based Information Tracking System (OBITS),[15] which compiles some demographic data, drug test results and length of incarceration.[16]
DJJ officers and guards are not armed — no firearms are allowed within juvenile institutions. Officers carry a firearm on their person outside of the institution or transporting a youthful offender to Court or a medical facility. Youthful Offenders are no longer kept in cages following Farrell reforms.
Teens with mental health problems were made worse, not better, by a system that is failing to rehabilitate kids, according to reports by independent experts.[9][17]
Among larger states, California consistently has had the highest youth incarceration rate, with more than double the national average youth incarceration rate, which critics decry for contributing to chronic overcrowding, unsafe conditions, poor health services, and numerous related problems, including gang violence.
A July 2008 report by California's Little Hoover Commission recommended that the state "eliminate its juvenile justice operations by 2011" by "turning supervision of all youth offenders over to counties and providing the resources for counties and county consortiums to supervise the most serious youth offenders".[18]
Some California Youth Authority juvenile prisons were known as "Gladiator Schools" by the wards who were incarcerated there. An oral history of stories from inside the California Youth Authority is documented by David Reeve (2017-2024). "Gladiator School: Stories from Inside YTS (An oral history from those who were incarcerated in the California Youth Authority)".
All Division of Juvenile Justice facilities closed on July 1, 2023.[19]
Lawrence Bittaker (1940-2019), serial killer and one of the two "Tool Box Killers"; sentenced for car theft, a hit and run, and evading arrest[22]:250[22]:250[23]:84
Steven David Catlin (born 1944), serial killer; served 9 months at age 19 for forgery charges[24]
Fleeta Drumgo (1945-1979), member of the San Quentin Six; was referred for first degree burglary[25]
Chol Soo Lee (1952-2014), immigrant wrongfully convicted of murder; served 13 months at CYA in 1967[26]
Bruce Lisker (born 1965), wrongfully convicted of murder; served time in several prisons, including CYA
California Men's Colony (CMC) is an American male-only state prison located northwest of the city of San Luis Obispo in San Luis Obispo County, California, along the central California coast approximately halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Incarceration in the United States is one of the primary means of punishment for crime in the United States. In 2021, over five million people were under supervision by the criminal justice system, with nearly two million people incarcerated in state or federal prisons and local jails. The United States has the largest known prison population in the world. It has 5% of the world’s population while having 20% of the world’s incarcerated persons. China, with more than four times more inhabitants, has fewer persons in prison. Prison populations grew dramatically beginning in the 1970s, but began a decline around 2009, dropping 25% by year-end 2021.
Calipatria State Prison (CAL) is a male-only state prison located in the city of Calipatria, in Imperial County, California.
In criminal justice systems, a youth detention center, known as a juvenile detention center (JDC), juvenile detention, juvenile jail, juvenile hall, or more colloquially as juvie/juvy or the Juvey Joint, also sometimes referred to as observation home or remand home is a prison for people under the age of majority, to which they have been sentenced and committed for a period of time, or detained on a short-term basis while awaiting trial or placement in a long-term care program. Juveniles go through a separate court system, the juvenile court, which sentences or commits juveniles to a certain program or facility.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) is the penal law enforcement agency of the government of California responsible for the operation of the California state prison and parole systems. Its headquarters are in Sacramento.
Chuckawalla Valley State Prison (CVSP) is a male-only state prison located south of Interstate 10, in a detached section of Blythe, California in Riverside County. CVSP is adjacent to Ironwood State Prison. The prison is scheduled for closure in 2025.
California Institution for Men (CIM) is a male-only state prison located in the city of Chino, San Bernardino County, California. It is often colloquially referenced as "Chino". In turn, locals call the prison "Chino Men's" or just "Men's" to avoid confusion with the city itself.
The American juvenile justice system is the primary system used to handle minors who are convicted of criminal offenses. The system is composed of a federal and many separate state, territorial, and local jurisdictions, with states and the federal government sharing sovereign police power under the common authority of the United States Constitution. The juvenile justice system intervenes in delinquent behavior through police, court, and correctional involvement, with the goal of rehabilitation. Youth and their guardians can face a variety of consequences including probation, community service, youth court, youth incarceration and alternative schooling. The juvenile justice system, similar to the adult system, operates from a belief that intervening early in delinquent behavior will deter adolescents from engaging in criminal behavior as adults.
The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights is a non-profit strategy and action center based in Oakland, California. The stated aim of the center is to work for justice, opportunity and peace in urban America. It is named for Ella Baker, a twentieth-century activist and civil rights leader originally from Virginia and North Carolina.
California State Prison, Centinela (CEN) is a male-only state prison located in Imperial County, California, approximately 20 miles (32 km) from Imperial and El Centro. The facility is sometimes referenced Centinela State Prison.
California State Prison, Sacramento (SAC) is a male-only state prison located in the city of Folsom, in Sacramento County, California. The facility is also referenced as Sacramento State Prison, CSP-Sacramento, CSP-SAC, and occasionally, New Folsom or New Folsom Prison which was its official name prior to October 1992.
The California state prison system is a system of prisons, fire camps, contract beds, reentry programs, and other special programs administered by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) Division of Adult Institutions to incarcerate approximately 117,000 people as of April 2020. CDCR owns and operates 34 prisons throughout the state and operates 1 prison leased from a private company.
Correctional Training Facility (CTF), commonly referenced as Soledad State Prison, is a state prison located on U.S. Route 101, 5 miles (8.0 km) north of Soledad, California, adjacent to Salinas Valley State Prison.
The Fred C. Nelles Youth Correctional Facility was in essence a prison for youth located on Whittier Boulevard, in Whittier, California. Operated by the California Youth Authority, now part of California Department of Corrections, it once quartered young people incarcerated for law-breaking until it was closed by the state of California in June 2004. Open for 113 years, it had been the oldest juvenile facility in the state, and became registered as California Historical Landmark #947. It was closed because of the reduction in the number of juveniles being housed.
Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility (RJD) is a California state prison in unincorporated southern San Diego County, California, near San Diego. It is operated by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The facility sits on 780 acres (320 ha). It is the only state prison in San Diego County. It is named after Richard J. Donovan.
The United States incarcerates more of its youth than any other country in the world, through the juvenile courts and the adult criminal justice system, which reflects the larger trends in incarceration practices in the United States. In 2010, approximately 70,800 juveniles were incarcerated in youth detention facilities alone. As of 2006, approximately 500,000 youth were brought to detention centers in a given year. This data does not reflect juveniles tried as adults. As of 2013, around 40% were incarcerated in privatized, for-profit facilities.
Prison overcrowding in the United States is a social phenomenon occurring when the demand for space in a U.S. prison exceeds the capacity for prisoners. The issues associated with prison overcrowding are not new, and have been brewing for many years. During the United States' War on Drugs, the states were left responsible for solving the prison overcrowding issue with a limited amount of money. Moreover, federal prison populations may increase if states adhere to federal policies, such as mandatory minimum sentences. On the other hand, the Justice Department provides billions of dollars a year for state and local law enforcement to ensure they follow the policies set forth by the federal government concerning U.S. prisons. Prison overcrowding has affected some states more than others, but overall, the risks of overcrowding are substantial and there are solutions to this problem.
California Health Care Facility (CHCF) is a state prison for incarcerated patients with long-term medical needs or acute mental health needs. The prison is located in Stockton, California, on the site of the former Karl Holton Youth Correctional Facility. Incarcerated people of all security levels are treated at the facility.
Incarceration in California spans federal, state, county, and city governance, with approximately 200,000 people in confinement at any given time. An additional 55,000 people are on parole.
MercuryNews.com - 'California Youth Authority' (in-depth six investigative report series), Brandon Bailey and Karen de Sá, San Jose Mercury News (November 23, 2004 - January 21, 2005)
SacBee.com[permanent dead link] - 'Suicide report blasts youth prison: Teen inmate was denied visits, mental health care, education, inspectors find', Andy Furillo, Sacramento Bee (December 30, 2005)
"EllaBakerCenter.org"(PDF). - 'California Youth Authority Warehouses: Failing Kids, Families & Public Safety' (white paper recommending closure of CYA and creation of rehabilitation centers), Books Not Bars (2005)
FDAP.org - 'Violence-Prone Youth Authority Still Fails Its Children, Its Taxpayers', Sue Burrell and Jonathan Laba. Daily Journal. (April 26, 2006)
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