For over a century, Fred C. Nelles Youth Correctional Facility was a highly visible reform school operated by the California Youth Authority, located on the major thoroughfare in Whittier, California, Whittier Boulevard. Its almost 74 overgrown acres in Whittier was home to wayward California youth until it went bankrupt in 2004.[1] First opened in 1890, it was the oldest juvenile facility in the state, as the Reform School for Juvenile Offenders. In 1941, the institution was renamed to honor Fred C. Nelles, superintendent of the school from 1912 to 1927.[2] It was closed and abandoned in 2004.
History
The facility opened in the late 19th Century when Whittier was only a small community with spacious open land,[3] as a reform school for boys and girls. Its original name was the Whittier State School. At one time it had children as young as 8 years old there, because they had no place else to go. At the time that Nelles was built there was plenty of land, wide open spaces, and the prospect of a juvenile correction facility on the outskirts of town posed little threat to the community.[3]
Picturesque Whittier Boulevard, near Fred C. Nelles Youth Correctional Facility
In the early 20th century, the State School had some of the best manual training and music programs in the state, and was a perennial football rival of Whittier High School, but "every time someone broke out, all the Whittier schools would be notified."[4] In 1990, five guards were fired for allegedly beating up several prisoners in their cells.[5]
In June 2004, the California Youth Authority, now part of California Department of Corrections, closed Nelles. [2] One of the main factors that contributed to the closing of the facility was the limit on property taxes enacted by Proposition 13 in 1978, which severely decreased overall school funding, [6]
Reform school
The term "reform school" itself, originally intended as destigmatizing, had developed its own stigma. Today, no state openly or officially refers to its juvenile correctional institutions as "reform schools". In California they are under the umbrella of California Division of Juvenile Justice. The attempt has also been made to reduce the population of such institutions as much as possible, and to leave all but the most incorrigible youths in home settings. In an attempt to make the incarceration conform to more sociological and sociocultural norms, and in response to the rising number of young female offenders, many such institutions have been made coeducational.
Campus
Averaging a daily population of 439 young people in its later years, the school housed nearly
1,000 wards at one time. The last inmate left the school in May 2004.[2] On the campus there is the Administration Building, the superintendent's residence, the Catholic and Protestant chapels, and a gymnasium. In Roosevelt Hall, the dormitory, the was the complete lack of privacy. In fact, wards had to earn a private cell.[4][7]
Community
People in the Whittier community have a lot of curiosity about what is behind its wall of trees and fences.
"They drive by Nelles multiple times a day, and have, most of their lives." a local resident said. "People are really curious to see what's behind the fence. They want to understand it more." Johanna Perez, a Whittier College librarian, recalls her parents threatening to send her to Nelles if she wasn't good, described the place as "surreal."[4] This was a common threat to children of that era growing up in the area.
The Fred C. Nelles facility occupies an area on Whittier Blvd., in what is now the middle of town. Residents were very pleased to learn that Nelles was closing and the property would be developed into commercial and retail property. [3]
"The boot camp model became a correctional panacea for juvenile offenders during the early 1990s, promising the best of both worlds—less recidivism and lower operating costs. Although there have been numerous studies of boot camp programs since that time, most have relied on nonrandomized comparison groups. The California Youth Authority’s (CYA’s) experimental study of its juvenile boot camp and intensive parole program (called LEAD)—versus standard custody and parole—was an important exception, but its legislatively mandated in-house evaluation was prepared before complete outcome data were available. The present study capitalizes on full and relatively long-term follow-up arrest data for the LEAD evaluation provided by the California Department of Justice in August 2002. Using both survival models and negative binomial regression models, the results indicate that there were no significant differences between groups in terms of time to first arrest or average arrest frequency."
[9][10]
Investigation
The Whittier Daily News newspaper has reported that State Senator Gloria Romero stated on July 6, 2007 that she has requested the CYA to investigate claims that bodies of 28 deceased wards are buried at the former Fred C. Nelles Youth Correctional Facility. The Senator stated she received an anonymous letter from a person who claimed that he or she worked at the CYA. Nelles remained open for 113 years until budget cuts shut it down in 2004. The burials reportedly took place up to the 1930s.[11]
Behind the fence
Currently the location is used as a backlot for television and motion picture filming. Due to a federal court ruling, the federal government has taken over the issue of whether a prison will be built at Nelles. It has yet to make a decision. The federal government is considering whether to construct an inmate medical facility on the site of Nelles due to the inadequate healthcare provided to prison inmates in California.[12]
The television show, "The Othersiders," [13] visited the facility. In the end, the Othersiders unanimously agree that the Fred C. Nelles Youth Correctional Facility is haunted. They reported that you can "hear girls laughing in the chapel and ghostly bangs in the gym and garage." A recent visitor said that "I know every street here in Whittier and now I've come to a whole new area. It feels like I'm not in Whittier, like I've been transported to another state or another area in the country."[4]Blow - Film starring Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz. Scenes were filmed at the Fred C. Nelles Youth Correctional Facility, Exteriors of a state execution facility were filmed at the Fred C. Nelles Youth Correctional Facility, the facility name being clearly shown in multiple shots.
"Prison Break" is still filming at the Fred C. Nelles Youth Correctional Facility
Land controversy
An historic assessment of the property was completed for the State of California in preparation for the initial sale of the property in 2005. In 2006, the City Council lost a bid for the now-closed Fred C. Nelles Youth Correctional Facility. The city and the state disagreed on the price of the Nelles property and the state put it up for bid, eventually selecting Meruelo Maddux Properties of Los Angeles. However, before the company could purchase the property, the State of California unlisted the property and it was designated as one of a handful of potential sites for a new men's prison. Plans for this were part of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's master plan to build more prisons across California. Then, Robert Sillen, the former federal receiver in charge of prison health care, placed Nelles on a list of seven sites that could be used for a new regional or mental health prison hospital.
The State of California has also concluded: that “The Fred C. Nelles Youth Correctional Facility has a "multi-layered history, which is significant to the City of Whittier and to the State of California.”
The site contains several buildings that should be eligible for individual listings on the National Register, the site is also listed as a State Historical Landmark, and the entire site is listed in the California Register of Historical Resources. The entire site should also be considered to be an historic resource under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and is subject to all of their rules and regulations. The Whittier Conservancy feels that there is plenty of land on the 74 acres for a successful mixed use development that could incorporate the older historic buildings for adaptive reuse along with development for big box, commercial, retail, and senior resources. [14]
Today, Whittier is a mature community of homes and businesses and the Fred C. Nelles facility occupies a significant area on Whittier Blvd., the main thoroughfare in town. The possibility of Nelles returning as a prison came to life in the form of Assembly Bill 5 and Senate Bill 2. [3] But, according to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune on 4/25/2010, historical protection and high-priced development could be on a collision course when it comes to developing the Nelles property. The 73.8-acre Nelles property as a whole has been listed as a state historical landmark. The administration building was constructed in 1928-29 and the state says it must be preserved. [15]
^Whittier College faculty, staffers tour Nelles - Whittier Daily News
^ A boot camp and intensive parole program an impact evaluation : preliminary findings by Jean Bottcher (1995) Examining the Effectiveness of Boot Camps: A Randomized Experiment with a Long-Term Follow Up
Miroslava Chavez-Garcia, an associate professor at UC Davis, has written a book about ethnicity and the effect on juvenile inmates in the state corrections system from the 1890s to the 1940s. In particular, the book focuses on Nelles.
