�The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard, I think, because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses.�
Bertrand Russell, Ideas That Have Harmed Mankind
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Below are links to a series of investigative reports published by the San Jose Mercury News in 2004 regarding the terrible conditions in CYA facilities.
Following much bad publicity about kids kept in cages and physically abused, increasing suicides, and very high arrest rates among "graduates" plus a series of lawsuits that resulted in a consent decree (a court order to fix the problems), the state changed the name of the CYA and produced a proposal for change. Critics of the system don't expect the changes to be effective because effective changes would cost a lot of money.
Meanwhile, the number of kids imprisoned in the former CYA has dropped in half over the last few years as local prosecutors increasingly charge teenagers (as young as 14 and almost all poor kids) in adult court and send them to adult prisons (see the Amnesty article "Betraying the Young" for an analysis of this approach).
CYA article 1
CYA article 2
CYA article 3
CYA article 4
CYA article 5
CYA article 6