http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/540445.html

California's youth prisons are getting smaller by the week. But a judge said there are still big questions about how effectively the state is managing the diminishing population and that he's thinking about appointing a receiver to run what's left of it.
Alameda Superior Court Judge Jon S. Tigar ordered the state's Division of Juvenile Justice last week to show him why he shouldn't appoint a receiver. The threat is coming three years after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a consent decree to overhaul the state's youth correctional system, where it now costs $199,000 a year to house a single ward.
In court papers filed last Wednesday in Oakland, Tigar signaled he was thinking about having the monitor run the entire division. Short of that, Tigar said in his order, he is considering the appointment of a receiver whose scope would be restricted to four key areas of operation that he said have broken down and are holding up plans for progress.

11-30-2007 National: Adult System Worsens Juvenile Recidivism, Report Says

Youths tried as adults and housed in adult prisons commit more crimes, often more violent ones, than minors who remain in the juvenile justice system, a panel of experts appointed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a new report.

Longer sentences and the transfer of juvenile offenders to the adult system gained traction in the 1980s and 1990s as youth crime increased. The trend raised fears in statehouses and in Congress about young predators, and laws to push more juvenile offenders into the adult system flourished. ..more.. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/29/AR2007112901936.html): by Robert E. Pierre, Washington Post Staff Writer