Central Juvenile Hall is a youth detention center in Los Angeles County. Central houses both boys and girls. The Central Juvenile Hall complex was originally established in 1912 as the first juvenile detention facility in Los Angeles County. The hall sits on twenty-two and one-half acres of land in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles. The facility has 24 buildings including living units, two infirmaries, two school buildings, two gyms, kitchen facilities, a chapel, and mechanical areas.ConditionsIn 2014, the Los County Grand Jury criticized the conditions of the hall, and proposed that it be torn down. Into 2016, juvenile justice reform advocates pushed a proposal that would split the Los Angeles County Probation Department in two parts, one for overseeing juveniles and one for adults.One former Central ward wrote about his experience in solitary confinement in 1962. Into the 2000s, former inmates recalled being placed in solitary confinement at Central.ProgramsIn 1997, Sister Janet Harris, then Catholic Chaplain at Central, cofounded InsideOUT Writers (IOW). The organization uses creative writing to encourage personal growth and transformation within the California juvenile justice system and still teaches writing workshops inside Central. Mark Salzman taught for IOW at Central, and wrote a book about his experience. In 2011, IOW teamed with the Los Angeles Opera to perform stories written by incarcerated youths at Central.
