California Closes Two Juvenile Detention Facilities

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California juvenile corrections officials announced the closure of two youth detention centers as part of the state’s efforts to comply with a court-ordered overhaul of the juvenile justice system.

The DeWitt Nelson Youth Correctional Facility, which houses 259 offenders in Stockton, Calif., and the 147-bed El Paso de Robles Youth Correctional Facility in Paso Robles, Calif., are scheduled to close in July, officials say.

The closures continue the state’s strategic initiative to restrict the youth prison population to only the most serious offenders, with less serious offenders housed at smaller community-based facilities.

The Juvenile Justice Division aims to reduce the state’s juvenile prison population to about 1,700 offenders by 2009, officials say. The target population marks a more than 80 percent decrease in the juvenile justice population, which reached a high of approximately 10,000 youth offenders 13 years ago.

With fewer wards in the system, the JJD will be better placed to implement the series of reforms — improved education, reduced violence, enhanced medical and mental health treatment — mandated by the Alameda Superior Court in 2004, officials say.

In 2007, the state stopped accepting lower-risk offenders from county jurisdictions and began paying counties almost $120,000 per juvenile to handle offenders within the county justice system.

Approximately 800 juvenile corrections staff are affected by the closures. All will be offered the opportunity to transfer to another facility in the juvenile or adult corrections systems, officials say.