The Closing of California’s Most Violent Juvenile Prison
Photo Essay: “Gladiator School” : Stories from Inside YTS Part 1
Written and photographed by David William Reeve
Hear about new episodes and more on Instagram: @davidwreeve
Gladiator School depicts the Heman G. Stark Juvenile Prison — previously known as YTS or Youth Training School — as it stands years after being closed by the California government. These photos show the prison as it was left in its final days, frozen in time. It’s as if the prison was closed and everyone simply walked away.
Stark was the youth division’s largest facility, with a peak population of nearly 2,000 wards. Prisoners there were called “wards” due to their young age. Stark imprisoned wards as young as twelve, I was told. It was colloquially known as the “Gladiator School” for its reputation of hardening young wards for what awaited them in men’s prison. Stark was closed in 2010 due to persistent violence and “unsafe and unsatisfactory conditions,” including the murder of a prison counselor.
Today, the prison is what’s described as “warm,” meaning that it remains ready to be re-opened on short notice. The Department of Juvenile Justice may call to revive the prison or a portion of it at any time. Until then, nearby Chino Men’s Prison (aka California Correctional Institution for Men, Chino) has access to the space as temporary housing in the event of a riot or fire. It served this very purpose for around 400 men in 2011.
In the meantime, a plant manager and his team provides basic maintenance, security, and oversight. There are many considerations, such as dissuading thieves from breaking in at night to steal copper pipes, or preventing the toilets from exploding by adding a chemical that neutralizes gasses in the plumbing.
My grandfather was a respected warden and consultant to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, including a stint as Associate Warden at Atlanta’s Federal Prison in the 1940s. He also served for a short time as a consultant at Stark in the 1970s. It was this familial connection that, after nine months of polite persistence, persuaded the state to issue me permission to enter and photograph the property. My host on the day had the title of Plant Manager. They welcomed me by remarking, “Boy, you must be someone important, ’cause the request came from the top.”
We used a master set of keys to enter a locked wooden door leading into the North East watchtower. Clearing cobwebs and crunching dead bugs under our boots, we passed an open, bone dry refrigerator, and felt our way through the pitch black darkness to a narrow stairway. The watchtower was understandably distant from the rest of the prison campus, designed to be somewhat self sufficient for the guard on duty.
In addition to the refrigerator, there was a toilet positioned in such a way that the guard could maintain a view of the yard while doing their business. A flyswatter and weathered broom indicated attempts at housekeeping while the hanging box fan told of hot afternoons under the blazing Chino sun, where summer temperatures routinely reach 100 degrees or more.
There was no electricity on this day. The whole prison was dark, except for some limited sunlight bleeding in through tarnished windows. Several times we were in complete blackness, seeing absolutely nothing — not ideal for a photographer. We groped the walls searching for doorknobs or a way out. Every door looks the same in the dark, and one could quickly lose track of which one you arrived from, or which you may leave through.
Stark hosts four housing units, each with cells about eight by six feet around, containing two bunk beds and one toilet. A report titled, Special Review of High-Risk Issues at the Heman G. Stark Youth Correctional Facility from the Office of the Inspector General reported that more than half of the cells were found to contain contraband: rope made of bed sheets; “pruno” (prison alcohol); a rolled-up mattress punching bag; tattoo devices; containers used to hold bodily fluids that wards lobbed at staff (an act referred to as “gassing”).
It was common for wards to spend 23 hours a day in a cell, with one hour allotted for outdoor exercise. This practice — which the state reported as excessive — was referred to as “23 and 1 incarceration”.
Chino Men’s Prison is just out of frame to the right. The two prisons are so close, in fact, that the men’s prison provided laundry services for the smaller juvenile prison. However, many wards preferred to launder their own clothes in their cells. This is because laundry sent to the men’s prison would often be lost, returned discolored, or replaced with inferior clothing — apparently a kind of game played by inmates.
Each housing unit contains four isolation cells. These cells are smaller and cage-like, located behind a wall of bars, a steel door, and a chain link mesh wall. “This is where we kept the incorrigibles,” I was told.
At one time, there were ten fights a day reported here — usually among rival gang members — and staff was unable to stop the pattern of violence. Wards would often commit offenses simply for the protection that isolation afforded them. One might ask whether the root of the violence was the wards or the prison itself.
As in all prisons, life was defined by more than just violence, even if that is the foundational truth of the place. In addition to the basketball court (above), the prison had a swimming pool, gymnasium, two football fields, boxing ring, and a weight room. The prison held competitive games of basketball in the gym under the team name, Stark Champs.
At one point in time, there were even visiting teams from other prisons. Competitions were held in basketball, soccer, football, softball and boxing. This all ended though, after the murder of a corrections officer.
In the event that the prison becomes operational again, training by the San Bernardino Sheriff Department continues on the premises. Inmate takedown procedures are practiced on the grounds. The old handball court is now used for target practice. Sheriff‘s deputies practice riot control scenarios by shooting beanbag rounds at a rough-hewn, human-shaped target.
Stark included an accredited high school, where attendance was mandatory for wards. Here they learned trade skills, worked to earn their GEDs, and completed assignments. Most feared going to school on site because they might be targeted with violence. Teachers entering segregated housing wore stab-proof vests, and face masks that would prevent bodily fluids from entering their mouths in a “gassing” incident.
We walked into a visitor’s hall, with seats clustered in the center of the room. They may have been assembled for a group therapy class, religious studies or, as in one documented case, for wards to play with visiting therapy animals (dogs or cats).
Due to these untenable conditions at Stark, among other concerns, state judges opted to instead start sentencing youth offenders to prisons run by the county. The feeling was that county youth correctional facilities were more progressive than those run by the state, and offered rehabilitation opportunities that were successful in improving the lives of many wards.
Ultimately the prison was closed in 2010, when the state had no solutions left for addressing the violence and mayhem there. A state attorney described Stark as an “especially horrible place,” and hundreds of workers lost their jobs in the shutdown. Exploring the still life of the administrative wing, it truly seemed like everybody simply stood up and walked away from the place.
The place stands now as a monument not just to the past, but to a reality that continues today. In its stillness and abandonment, it speaks to the lasting harm of a carceral state that interrupts lives, much as its own existence was interrupted, aging and gathering dust instead of serving any better purpose.
In the prison chapel, we came across a poem written on the wall. It reads:
Why us, I say to you.
I speak for the ones who are afraid
of what you do.
For there should be no fear in the
Land of Man.
We should all stand together,
Hand in hand.
Why do to others what you don’t
want done to you.
The answer to that questions lies
within the truth.
There is still a chance to stop
victimization but,
The only way we can do that is through global communication.
We must help our fellow man, through the good and the bad.
— “Why Us” by L. Copeland
Want to read more? “Gladiator School: Stories from Inside YTS” is a series on Medium:
The Closing of California’s Most Violent Juvenile Prison”
“We couldn’t show fear”
“Remember what they taught us?”
“How soon will I know?”
“The only way out”
“We were not afraid to die”
“That Hell they put me in”
“Fifty-five fights”
“Lost in the Halls”
“Putting in work”
“The last watch”
“The white horse”
“Battle scars”
“Home is where I’m standing”
“Internal affairs”
“Focus on their trauma”
“YA Babies: Suitable for parole”
“The boxing trophy”
David William Reeve is a writer and photographer from Southern California who documents the lives of young people at risk.
Contact: davidwilliamreeve (at) gmail (dot) com
Follow on Instagram: @davidwreeve
Sources:
Prison Legal News
San Jose Mercury News
Los Angeles Times
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
Daily Breeze
