Calif. to shift largest juvenile prison to adults

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - California plans to transform its largest juvenile prison into a lockup for 1,200 adults to save money and ease crowding in the adult system, officials said Thursday.

Corrections officials said they no longer need the space for 400 youthful offenders, who will be transferred to the state's remaining five juvenile facilities. Recent changes in state law have sharply cut the number of juvenile offenders in state custody to about 1,700 statewide.

Heman G. Stark Youth Correctional Facility in Chino will be outfitted to hold adults, possibly those with medical or mental health problems, said Scott Kernan, an undersecretary with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

It would cost about $500 million to build a new adult prison, but the youth facility can be altered with razor wire, an electric fence and other safeguards for about a third of that cost, Kernan said.

The facility already is being used for 600 adults transferred from the nearby California Institution for Men after more than 1,000 inmates rioted there Aug. 8, destroying or damaging several dormitories.

The department lost 1,300 beds in the riot, so "the relief of overcrowding is sorely needed," Kernan said.

Prisons already were jammed to nearly double their designed capacity, prompting federal judges earlier this year to order the state to reduce its inmate population by 40,000 inmates over two years.

The state Senate last week approved a plan that would reduce the population by about 37,000 inmates over two years by sending more inmates to local jails or home confinement. The plan is stalled in the Assembly, which plans to take up a scaled-down version on Monday.

The department said it will issue 1,240 layoff notices this week to employees in the juvenile justice section.

Closing Stark will save an estimated $35 million to $40 million, said Bernard Warner, who runs the Division of Juvenile Justice, though the savings will be offset by the cost of converting the facility to house adults.

The division has been harshly criticized for its high cost, budgeted at $252,000 per ward this year. Warner said the division has since cut its cost per ward to about $200,000. The high cost is because the state's closure of juvenile facilities has not kept pace with the declining number of wards, though the state has closed eight youth facilities since 2003.

Closing Stark will bring the ratio back to a proper balance, and no more closures are planned, Warner said.

Republican state lawmakers have said the department could function with as few as two of the remaining five youth facilities to save more money. Corrections experts have suggested all the remaining juvenile delinquents could be transferred back to counties.

Prison reform groups praised the announcement.

"Stark youth prison has long been known as one of the worst of the worst youth prisons in the state," Zachary Norris, director of Oakland-based Books Not Bars, said in a statement. "This definitely is a step in the right direction for the state, but California's juvenile justice system needs a comprehensive overhaul."