California Youth Authority

The California Youth Authority or the CYA as it is more commonly known, is an institution which provides a range of education, treatment, and training services for youthful offenders committed by courts. This system has been plagued by multitudes of problems for many years that need to be fixed.

“The California Youth Authority is responsible for the protection of society form the criminal and delinquent behavior of young people(Hill, Legislative Analyst).” This is reached mainly through custodial control of these juveniles and the implementation of vocational, education, health, and mental health treatment services.

As of now, CYA uses large, remote, high-security facilities. They may be called "schools," but with about 400 kids in each one, they are more like warehouses, storing wards until they are ready for release. For decades, experts and officials have dismissed this model as incapable of meeting the juvenile justice system’s goal of rehabilitating youth.

The CYA is clearly not working the way the way that