The last of California’s juvenile detention facilities will be shut down under Gov. Jerry Brown’s 2011-12 budget proposal. The three remaining facilities hold about 1,100 offenders. They will be transferred to county control if Brown’s budget is passed.
“What the research shows is that most juveniles are successful at rehabilitating when they live closer to their families so that their families can be part of their rehabilitation treatment,” California Corrections and Rehabilitation Department’s Bill Sessa said.
This is a stark difference from 15 years ago when 11 facilities that held more than 10,000 youngsters were “well known for 23-hour cell confinements, using cages as punishment for misbehaving and staff beatings, sometimes caught on tape,” according to a report by ABC7.
In 2008 the Hoover Commission recommended closing youth prisons because the price tag to incarcerate each offender grew to $200,000 a year, even though crime rates for juvenile crime fell to its lowest since records began in the mid-‘50s.