California voters think major reforms of the state’s criminal justice system are needed, and they support changes that would focus on prevention and rehabilitation programs targeted at young people, according to a new poll released Thursday.

The survey by Tulchin Research Co. of 601 registered voters found that voters favor prevention more than building more prisons and adopting tougher sentencing laws.

“They don’t have this mentality to lock everybody up and throw away the key,” said Ben Tulchin, who supervised the poll. “They see a need for reform, that the status quo is not working...”

California Governor Jerry Brown recently scratched a proposal to shut down California’s youth prisons. The plan had been applauded by longtime prison reform groups and was just one part of Brown’s recommendations for eliminating the state’s $28 billion budget shortfall. According to San Francisco Chronicle, the Democratic governor’s plan, known as realignment, would “let counties decide once a year if they want to contract with juvenile justice to house some offenders.”

But while a complete overhaul may be off the table, activists are still hopeful that they can institute meaningful reforms in one of the nation’s largest prison system for young people...

Government reformers and youth advocates have long called for California to get out of the business of juvenile corrections.

Now they're backing Gov. Jerry Brown's proposal to eliminate the state Division of Juvenile Justice and give counties responsibility for the state's worst young offenders.

Brown wants to eliminate the division in three years. High costs, poor treatment and other shortcomings have made the agency a target of critics...

Gov. Jerry Brown’s bid to abolish the state youth prison system could save hundreds of millions of dollars and quicken the pace of reform at county facilities. But the changes could remove important barriers that keep some juvenile offenders out of adult prisons.

Brown’s plan to close the Division of Juvenile Justice was part of drastic budget cuts he presented last week. If the budget is enacted, the division would stop accepting new wards and close by June 30, 2014, with any remaining offenders transferred to local jurisdictions. The state would save $250 million once the plan is fully implemented, according to the governor’s office...

Plans to shut down the Preston Youth Correctional Facility — something that could save the state tens of millions of dollars — is running into opposition. The fight over closing one of California’s few remaining juvenile justice facilities is showing the difficulty that state leaders face as they attempt to close a $25.4 billion budget gap.

California Assemblywoman Alyson Huber (D-Lodi) has responded with AB 8, which would call for the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to keep all of five of the state’s remaining youth correctional facilities open for at least six months and prohibit any staff reductions during that time. The bill needs a two-thirds majority in the Legislature to pass...

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) took aim at a Florida state-funded, for-profit juvenile prison after allegations of horrific conditions surfaced.  According to a federal lawsuit filed on behalf of children held at Thompson Academy in Broward County, Florida, the staff at Thompson Academy routinely brutalized, chocked and slammed the children into walls.  At least one was sexually assaulted and after the abuse was reported administrations continued to allow the staff member to have contact with the child, resulting in a second sexual assault...

A fight that started six years ago at a Stockton-area youth prison, igniting statewide calls to reform California's juvenile-justice system, is about to flare up again - this time in a downtown courtroom.

Rather than exchanging physical blows, Narciso Morales, a former ward at N.A. Chaderjian Youth Correctional Facility, and Delwin Brown, a youth correctional counselor, will let their attorneys exchange verbal jabs.

But on Jan. 20, 2004, they physically brawled in earnest.

Grainy images of a fray among two wards and two staffers splashed across national media outlets. The case turned the Stockton complex into a lightning rod.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) today announced that the Ventura Youth Correctional Facility is no longer being considered for a possible medical facility for adult inmates. The facility will continue to be used for the rehabilitation of juvenile offenders.

After months of considering many potential sites, the federal court-appointed health care receiver and CDCR announced recently that facilities to provide mental health and medical care to upwards of 2,800 inmates would be constructed in Stockton, San Joaquin County…

They are not old enough to vote, have full driving privileges, join the military or buy a beer. Yet, three reputed teen gang members charged in San Jose's Halloween night attack on a pair of young trick-or-treaters face the very real prospect of spending the rest of their lives in prison.

Locked up in the Santa Clara County Jail, these 15- and 16-year-old boys now find themselves a portrait of the ongoing debate over imprisoning violent juvenile offenders for life. That is the potential sentence if these high-school-age defendants are convicted of the most serious charges against them, including the attempted murders of the 12- and 13-year-old victims.

The San Jose case, which has sparked a community outcry, is hitting the local courts at a time when there is renewed public and legal scrutiny nationally on the tension between dealing with rampant youth violence with harsh sentences and the age-old presumption that juvenile offenders should have a shot at reform…

California's largest and most notoriously troubled youth prison will soon shut its doors to juvenile offenders, the latest move in a systemwide shift away from punitive, adult-style warehouses that has contributed to the most dramatic downsizing of its kind in American history.

Human rights activists and crime experts alike celebrated Thursday as juvenile justice chief Bernie Warner announced the pending removal of all young offenders from the Heman G. Stark Correctional Facility in Chino. The facility now houses 390 men, including 32 from Northern California, who committed serious and violent offenses as minors.

Stark is one of the state's two most violent institutions for men ages 18 to 25 doing time for crimes as serious as rape, armed robbery and murder…

The state is closing California's largest youth prison as the population of juvenile offenders in state custody continues to decline, corrections officials announced Thursday.

The Heman G. Stark Youth Correctional Facility in Chino will be converted into an adult prison, state officials said. The move is part of a plan to "right-size" staff at the Division of Juvenile Justice, which is reducing its workforce by 400 employees by the end of this year to save the state up to $40 million, said Bernard Warner, the chief deputy secretary for the division.

The plan also is geared toward reducing the annual cost of incarcerating and caring for each ward from $252,000 to $175,000, state officials said…

Employees of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation were informed that layoff notices would be going out this week to 1,300 workers statewide, including about 1,200 in the Division of Juvenile Justice and 100 in adult programs, spokesman Seth Unger said.

A memo from department Chief of Staff Brett Morgan noted that juvenile and adult facilities in San Joaquin County would be impacted, as would juvenile facilities in Amador County. However, no specific details were available Tuesday on how many employees in the counties might be affected.

Layoff notices were also going out to prison employees in Fresno, Kings, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Bernardino and Ventura counties, according to the memo…

Astate with a $24.3 billion deficit and a sputtering economy needs to get serious about reassessing all of its policies. One of California's most senseless practices, in its waste of tax dollars and human capability, is a law that allows juvenile offenders to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

More than 250 California inmates are locked up without possibility of parole for crimes they committed before the age of 18.

The rest of the civilized world recognizes the folly of condemning a juvenile to a life behind bars. The United States stands alone in issuing no-parole life sentences to minors, according to Human Rights Watch…

With California mired in near-catastrophic budget woes, a growing number of researchers are calling for the state to shut down its youth prison system, which they say has become too expensive, too mired in abusive practices, and too ineffective in enhancing public safety.

There are just six remaining prisons for the state's most serious juvenile offenders, and they house the lowest number of inmates ever recorded in modern history. That has left taxpayers in an era of deep cuts to education and social services footing a bill of a quarter-million dollars each year for each of the 1,600 youthful offenders now left in state custody.

In a report headed this week to legislators wrestling with a $21.3 billion budget shortfall, the San Francisco-based Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice describes a way out: Shut down the state prison system for youthful offenders, and turn the population back to county probation departments that are sitting on empty beds in new and refurbished juvenile halls…

The state's corrections chief toured the Ventura Youth Correctional Facility Friday and met with a group of county leaders to discuss the site's future as officials consider consolidating and closing some juvenile facilities.

The facility on Wright Road in Camarillo, which houses juvenile female offenders, has been eyed by a federal receiver tasked with improving healthcare in California prisons as a possible site for prison hospital.

After touring the facility, a reception center in Norwalk earlier in the day and talking to wards and staff at both locations, Matthew Cate, secretary of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said in an interview that he wanted to meet with local community leaders "to get their ideas on how we might utilize Ventura."…

Faced with a gaping budget deficit, Orange County officials disclosed plans Tuesday to lay off nearly 60 Probation Department employees and to start releasing some juvenile criminal suspects rather than holding them in juvenile hall.

Word of the cutbacks came the same day that 1,000 angry workers stormed the Orange County Hall of Administration to protest previously announced plans to lay off 210 social services employees.

The social services cuts stem from a steep reduction in state funding that county officials said left them with no option but to eliminate jobs. In addition to the layoffs, the county has disclosed plans to require 4,000 social services employees to take two weeks off without pay next year….

Recent media accounts have reported on the rising rates of school suspensions in California. Clearly, the problem is statewide, but is worse in neighborhoods already stressed by high rates of violence and poverty. We seem to be staring directly down the "school to jail pipeline"—meaning that youth that have behavior issues walk a fine line between school and the corrections system. Before we fall back on the hackneyed and disproven solution of more police (especially officers untrained to handle teens) or more punitive responses, we owe it to our youth to think carefully.

We have a right to ask a great deal of our schools; they must be safe, respond to the current realities of the families they serve, and strive for high student achievement. However, they need the tools and resources to do all we ask of them. School budgets are in dire straits. We have cut everything from music, sports, and after-school programs, to counselors and mental health services. Teachers lack training in handling difficult student behavior. They have less freedom to respond to the varied learning styles of their students and more pressure to conform to standardized tests. We must not resign ourselves to an increasingly harsh school culture…

El Paso de Robles Youth Correctional Facility officially shut its doors on July 31 for what state officials referred to as a "warm closure" with most of its existing employees landing jobs in San Luis Obispo, Soledad and Salinas.

Spokeswoman Josi Slonski said the majority of the Paso Robles boys school staff was placed within the adult division of California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation at California Men's Colony, CDCR's Correctional Training Facility in Soledad and Salinas Valley State Prison.

Effective Aug. 1, an estimated five employees were to stay at the facility including maintenance personnel to keep the institution running, Slonski said. Effective last Friday, the institution was officially to be referred to as the Estrella Correctional Facility and shed its former name…

A state watchdog commission has recommended that California phase out its antiquated juvenile prisons by 2011, replacing them with regional lockups run by the counties. The regional centers would hold only the most dangerous offenders under the proposal unveiled Monday by the watchdog Little Hoover Commission. Less serious offenders would be housed at local juvenile halls.

Commissioners said the state also should end its three-year experiment with combining youth and adult prisons under the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Authority over youth prisons would be placed under an Office of Juvenile Justice reporting to the governor until the state ends its involvement.

The report also suggests that the youth prisons do little in the way of rehabilitation, saying three of four freed young offenders commit new crimes within three years…

On Monday June 23, the Fortuna Chamber of Commerce held it's weekly luncheon at the Monday Club on Main Street. Special guest speaker was Greg Allen of the California State Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation who gave a special presentation about gangs locally and abroad.

In his presentation, Allen shared a few photos taken recently of what appeared to be blue spray painted graffiti in Fortuna.

To begin with definitions, agent Allen said that a gang is three or more people having a common name or common identifying sign or symbol whose members individually or collectively engage in, or have engaged in a pattern of criminal gang activity. There are also misguided individuals, who are usually youths who copy symbols and patterns and deface businesses and residential areas at times, using similar mischievous patterns…

It is as important to provide re-entry programming for incarcerated individuals as it is to offer rehabilitative services to them while imprisoned, especially for youth offenders.

Juvenile delinquency is a major pipeline to the adult prison system, which is already bursting at the seams. The truth is that very few people in prison stay there forever.

It is in our best interest to invest in helping those who pay their debt to society, whether juveniles or adults, find their way back and assist them in pursuing successful living. The reality for persons returning to society from incarceration is that most must come back to the environment they were in when they got into trouble…

High-ranking state officials from California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation will visit El Paso de Robles Youth Correctional Facility this Friday, June 20 for a closing ceremony. The ceremony comes in light of an upcoming July 31 closure, whereby the facility will undergo a facelift to be repurposed to house 1,000 inmates in a low-level adult prison for people 50 years or older and Cal Fire camp on its 150-acre site…

…Immediately following the announcement of the proposed closure last January, the facility housed an estimated 350 employees. As of press time, around 100 of those employees had left the facility and may have relocated elsewhere, according to Josi Slonski, spokeswoman…

The state has agreed to provide attorneys and timely hearings for juveniles accused of violating parole, in a settlement of a federal class-action lawsuit by youths who said prison officials infringed on their constitutional rights.

The lawsuit, filed nearly two years ago by former wards of the state's Division of Juvenile Justice, alleged that the state was violating youths' rights to due process by detaining them for months without legal counsel or a hearing on the charges and by failing to offer assistance for those who were disabled, as required by federal law.

In some cases, youths would be held for so-called technical violations of the terms of their release, such as consuming alcohol or traffic offenses…

TRACY - Under state prison reform plans, Deuel Vocational Institution, a medium-security facility near Tracy, might add 2,000 new beds, the prison's acting warden told a group of community leaders Tuesday.

Deuel's Steven Moore said part of a $7.7 billion prison reform bill signed into law one year ago could pay for construction of 500 new beds at the Tracy prison to relieve overcrowding.

Deuel also is being considered for a 1,500-bed medical center, he said.

The federal appointee overseeing California's prison health care system said the location of youth prisons south of Stockton also has been discussed for possible expansion and is even more likely to be picked for a regional medical center for adult inmates…

Paso Roblans concerned about the state's plans for the next life of the El Paso de Robles Youth Correctional Facility got the change to question state officials for the first time Monday night.

The meeting, attended by about 75 people, was the first of two. A second session is today at 11 a.m. at Paso Robles City Hall.

There are three options for the site's future, which all could move forward: a 900-inmate medium security state prison; 250 inmate state re-entry facility for prisoners nearing their parole dates; and a 100-inmate fire camp…

The Record is to be thanked for its coverage of juvenile justice ("Criminally stagnant," Monday).

Having worked in the Division of Juvenile Justice for more than 20 years as a youth correctional peace officer, it has been clear to me throughout my career that there are pro-ward advocates who do not fully understand the dynamics of what really goes on inside a youth correctional facility.

In the article, Prison Law Office attorney Sara Norman is quoted as referring to the young men confined at the N.A. Chaderjian Youth Correctional Facility as kids. Jakada Imani of Books Not Bars is quoted as describing them as young children. The wards at Chad and several other state youth correctional facilities are 18 and older. They are not kids or children…

The Columbia Training School - pleasant on the outside, austere on the inside - has been home to 37 of the most troubled young women in Mississippi.

If some of those girls and their advocates are to be believed, it also is a cruel and frightening place.

The school has been sued twice in the past four years. One suit brought by the U.S. Justice Department, which the state settled in 2005, claimed detainees were thrown naked in to cells and forced to eat their own vomit. The second one, brought by eight girls last year, said they were subjected to "horrendous physical and sexual abuse." Several of the detainees said they were shackled for 12 hours a day…

Advocates urge a judge to appoint a receiver to take over a system they say remains broken despite long-standing promises to fix it.

Three years after state officials promised to fix California's troubled juvenile prisons, advocates for incarcerated youths are urging a judge to appoint a receiver to take over a system they say remains tragically broken. The plea came in a filing last week from lawyers who had settled with the state after suing to transform institutions they said treated children as hardened criminals without regard for their welfare. They contend that the state's Division of Juvenile Justice has missed dozens of court-ordered deadlines for change dating to 2005, making "a mockery of compliance" in six areas: education, safety, medical care, mental health, disabilities and sex-offender treatment…

The district attorney's decision to try 14-year-old Brandon McInerney as an adult in the killing of another boy is part of a soaring trend in Ventura County. In the past two years, the number of juvenile offenders tried as adults has nearly tripled from 10 in 2006 to 27 in 2007, officials say — a nearly 170 percent increase. Also, in the four previous years — from 2002 to 2005 — the total number of such cases was just five, according to figures from the Ventura County District Attorney's Office…