Ventura Youth Correctional Facility, Camarillo, California

This young female inmate at Ventura Youth Correctional Facility had served four years at the time of visit and had four years remaining. She is holding a model of a cell that she constructed.

When I was 13, my boyfriend and I, we were really, really high burglarizing a house in the desert. The burglary was interrupted… the people came home and my boyfriend brutally murdered them both. I am 20 years old. I came to this room when I was 14 and I have been sharing 7 x 10 feet of space with another woman since. I’ve been eligible for parole, but all four times the families of the victims came and spoke against my release. If it was my family, I would do the same, but I am a different person at 20 than the drugged child I was at 13. Here I head a pretty well-respected women’s fire-fighting unit. We work with local facilities and assist in brush clearing, mudslides and forest fires. I am due for release in … Read More »

I’m in for a parole violation, I’ve been at Ventura for three months. And I am getting out on Sunday. Can’t believe it.

- V, age 18, Ventura County Juvenile Justice Facility. A group cell in the boys detention pod.