By Jeremy Louenback, The Chronicle of Social Change, May 14, 2020

With coronavirus pummeling Californians’ health and economy like a modern day plague, few expected a line item buried in an otherwise deficit-driven budget that Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) announced Thursday: After decades of the state running what was once the country’s most vast and notorious youth prison system, the end could be near for the Division of Juvenile Justice.

The governor’s proposal would close the last three youth prisons and a fire camp run by the state’s juvenile justice system, halting a more than 100-year tradition of incarcerating California’s youngest offenders at remote warehouse-like facilities. Instead, juvenile offenders who have committed the most serious and violent crimes would remain at county-run detention facilities overseen by local probation departments.

If the governor’s plan is approved by the state legislature, it would end the brutal legacy of a youth prison system in California that once housed as many as 10,000 youth and teens. In the past, young people were locked in cages for school and recreation, and held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day.

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