Closing California’s Youth Prisons

For more than a century, California’s youth corrections system reflected the false promise of rehabilitation through confinement. From the opening of the Whittier State Reformatory in 1891 to the closure of the Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) in 2023, generations of young people endured abuse, neglect, and systemic racism behind institutional walls. 

The closure of DJJ marked not just the end of a system: it marked the triumph of a decades-long struggle for justice led by survivors, advocates, and reformers. CJCJ stood at the forefront of this movement. Our research, advocacy, and vision helped transform California’s youth justice and inspired reform nationwide. 

California’s closure of its state youth prison system provides these clear lessons: 

• Reform is not enough – Institutional abuse is not an aberration but a function of confinement itself. Real reform requires dismantling the carceral model entirely.
• Data and advocacy must align – CJCJ’s success stemmed from combining rigorous research with survivor testimony, legislative engagement, and public education.
• Community investment works – Funding local, family-centered programs is not just more humane — it produces better outcomes for youth, families, and public safety.
• Persistence builds change – The closure of DJJ took more than 35 years of advocacy. CJCJ’s sustained commitment transformed short-term reform into structural abolition.

A Century of Control: The Birth of Youth Incarceration in California

California’s first youth institutions emerged in the late 19^th century under the guise of reform. The Whittier State Reformatory (1891) and the Preston School of Industry (1894) promised discipline and moral education but delivered forced labor, corporal punishment, and neglect. By the early 20^th century, the system’s entanglement with eugenics intensified its brutality. Under the 1914 sterilization law, California performed thousands of coerced sterilizations, many on institutionalized youth, disproportionately targeting poor and nonwhite populations.

Institutional Entrenchment: The California Youth Authority Era

In 1942, the California Youth Authority (CYA) consolidated youth prisons statewide, promising a new era of modern rehabilitation. Instead, it created an expanded, militarized system. Through the mid-20^th century, CYA operated vast facilities that mirrored adult prisons by isolating youth from their families and subjecting them to violence and neglect. Despite multiple reorganizations in 1961, 1969, and 1980, the culture of control remained untouched.

Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, reformer Dr. Jerome G. Miller demonstrated another path by closing every youth prison and replacing them with community-based programs. His success became the model for abolition. Yet California continued to expand confinement rather than dismantle it.

Crisis and the Rise of CJCJ

By the 1980s, California’s youth prison system was collapsing under its own weight. Reports of solitary confinement, physical abuse, and staff-organized violence flooded the press. In 1986, Dr. Miller brought his abolitionist vision to California, founding the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice (CJCJ) in San Francisco. CJCJ quickly assumed a statewide leadership role by documenting widespread abuse, testifying before the state legislature, and advancing the radical idea that youth incarceration could and should end. CJCJ’s research revealed that confinement produced trauma and recidivism, while community-based care produced safety and healing. Despite CJCJ’s early warnings, the 1990s tough-on-crime era fueled mass incarceration. By 1996, over 10,000 youth were held in CYA custody amid scandals of violence and neglect. These conditions proved that institutional reform was impossible within a fundamentally abusive system.

Turning the Tide: Litigation, Legislation, and Leadership

The early 2000s marked a major shift. After the Prison Law Office filed Farrell v. Allen in 2003, court oversight exposed CYA’s unconstitutional conditions. CJCJ’s research became instrumental in shaping legislative reform:

• 2002: Aftercare as Afterthought — a CJCJ report commissioned by the California Legislature, documenting CYA’s failure to support youth reentry.
• 2005: Restructuring Juvenile Corrections in California — a comprehensive CJCJ blueprint for closing youth prisons and transferring responsibility to counties.

These reports laid the foundation for what would become a full system transformation. That same year, CYA was renamed the Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) and placed under the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, CJCJ continued to lead by advising the Little Hoover Commission, testifying before legislative committees, and publishing reports that mapped the path to DJJ’s closure. In 2015, Daniel Macallair’s book, After the Doors Were Locked: A History of Youth Corrections in California and the Origins of 21^st Century Reform, commissioned by the California State Assembly Committee on Public Safety, provided the definitive historical account and policy roadmap for abolishing youth prisons in California.

History Made: The Closure of DJJ

In 2020, Governor Gavin Newsom announced that California would permanently close its youth prisons through Senate Bills 823 and 92, citing their long record of abuse and failure. CJCJ’s 2019 investigation had confirmed that DJJ’s violence and neglect persisted even after decades of oversight. Its final report, Beyond Repair (2023), documented 132 years of systemic harm and warned that counties must not replicate the carceral model at the local level. On June 30, 2023, DJJ closed its doors, ending California’s 132-year experiment with youth incarceration. The closure represented the culmination of generations of advocacy and the realization of CJCJ’s founding vision.

National Implications

California’s closure of DJJ stands as a national precedent, proving that youth prisons can be abolished without sacrificing public safety. States from New York to Texas are now reevaluating their own youth confinement systems, looking to California and to CJCJ’s consistent and unflagging advocacy as a guide. The closing of California’s youth prisons continues the legacy that began with the abolition of the Massachusetts reform schools and represents the largest deinstitutionalization in the history of the American juvenile justice system. The lessons of California’s struggle are clear: the future of juvenile justice lies not behind bars, but within communities that nurture accountability, opportunity, and healing.

Further Reading and Sources

Bakal, Yitzak, and Howard Polsky. Reforming Corrections for Juvenile Offenders.

Bush, William S. Who Gets a Childhood? Race and Juvenile Justice in Twentieth-Century Texas.

Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice. Aftercare as Afterthought: Reentry and the California Youth Authority. 2002.

Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice. Beyond Repair: Envisioning a Humane Future After 132 Years of Brutality in California’s Youth Prisons. 2023.

Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice. Restructuring Juvenile Corrections in California: A Report to the State Legislature. 2005.

Chávez-García, Miroslava. States of Delinquency: Race and Science in the Making of California’s Juvenile Justice System.

Coates, Robert, Alden D. Miller, and Lloyd E. Ohlin. Diversity in a Youth Corrections System: Handling Delinquents in Massachusetts.

Feld, Barry C. The Evolution of the Juvenile Court: Race, Politics, and the Criminalizing of Juvenile Justice.

Lemert, Edwin. The Juvenile Court System: Social Structure and Process.

Macallair, Daniel. After the Doors Were Locked: A History of Youth Corrections in California and the Origins of 21^st Century Reform.

Macallair, Daniel. ​“The Closing of the Massachusetts Reform Schools and the Legacy of Jerome Miller.” Youth Today, 2011.

Macallair, Daniel, Mike Males, and Catherine McCracken. Closing California’s Division of Juvenile Facilities: An Analysis of County Institutional Capacity. Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, May 2009.

Miller, Jerome G. Last One Over the Wall: The Massachusetts Experiment in Closing Reform Schools.

Miller, J. G. ​“Jerome G. Miller, Who Reshaped Juvenile Justice, Dies at 83.” The New York Times, January 23, 2019.

Schlossman, Steven L. Transforming Juvenile Justice: Reform Ideals and Institutional Realities, 1825 – 1920.

Schur, Edwin M. Radical Nonintervention: Rethinking the Delinquency Problem.

Society for the Prevention of Pauperism. Report on the Penitentiary System in the United States.

Tanenhaus, David S. Juvenile Justice in the Making.

Ward, Geoff K. The Black Child-Savers: Racial Democracy and Juvenile Justice.

Woodson, Kenneth. Weeping the Playtime of Others.

Please reach out to each if you would like to contribute to our research and/​or archive of materials and stories from California’s youth prisons. You can contact us at cjcjmedia@​cjcj.​org