Prisons

The state is closing California's largest youth prison as the population of juvenile offenders in state custody continues to decline, corrections officials announced Thursday. The Heman G. Stark Youth Correctional Facility in Chino will be converted into an adult prison, state officials said. The move is part of a plan to "right-size" staff at the Division of Juvenile Justice, which is reducing its workforce by 400 employees by the end of this year to save the state up to $40 million, said Bernard Warner, the chief deputy secretary for the division.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration is exploring a settlement of two lawsuits that would require California to dramatically reduce the number of inmates in its overcrowded prisons -- and limit the Legislature's influence on the issue, according to participants in the discussions. The settlement discussions in the federal court cases, which have been consolidated, are in an early stage, and the framework of a deal has not been ironed out.

Lawmakers should reject Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed 5% raise for California's politically powerful prison guards' union, the state's nonpartisan fiscal watchdog said Thursday. Correctional officers have received more than adequate pay increases in recent years that have far surpassed those of other state workers, Legislative Analyst Elizabeth G. Hill said.

Orange County's acting Sheriff Jack Anderson on Thursday proposed pulling hundreds of deputies from the state's second-largest jail system and replacing them with career correctional officers. The move, which would dramatically change the way Orange County jails are operated, would create a new career path in the Sheriff's Department: employees who are permanently assigned to the county jails.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to release tens of thousands of prisoners before they've served their full sentences to save money. The Legislature isn't inclined to hand him the cell keys. The governor advocates turning felons loose on the street without parole supervision. The Legislature is thinking they should be kept on a leash. Schwarzenegger has proposed giving prison guards a 5% pay hike.

The Board of Supervisors postponed a decision Tuesday on spending $672 million to revamp Los Angeles County's strained jail system so Sheriff's Department and other county officials could better explain the idea to city leaders in Lancaster and Palmdale. County executives say they will spend the next three weeks informing city officials about their plan to build a $330-million facility at the Mira Loma Detention Center in Lancaster.

Five former U.S. secretaries of State on Thursday urged the next presidential administration to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and open a dialogue with Iran. The former chiefs of American diplomacy, who served in Democratic and Republican administrations, reached a consensus on the two issues at a conference in Athens aimed at giving the next president some bipartisan foreign policy advice. Each of them said closing the prison in Cuba would bolster America's image abroad.

Under gray skies all but obscured by an opaque canopy and high concrete walls topped with razor wire, two bearded young men in tan tunics are having "rec time" inside separate chain-link pens. One jogs frenziedly back and forth in the 30-foot enclosure; the other is curled like a fetus at the base of a cement block. It's a dreary winter afternoon, but the scene could be any time of the day or night.

They lied, they changed their stories and they compared notes even after being ordered not to by a special Orange County grand jury investigating a deadly beating at Theo Lacy Jail, the testimony shows. During 45 days of grand jury prodding, members of the Sheriff's Department repeatedly hindered the probe, according to thousands of pages of transcripts made public last week. Then-Sheriff Michael S.

Fearful that their area might be getting more criminals from throughout Los Angeles County, some residents of the Antelope Valley voiced concerns Saturday over a proposal to expand Lancaster's Mira Loma Detention Center complex. "We're tired of being a dumping ground, and that's what we're being used for," Fred Sellas, a 15-year resident of Palmdale, said at a town hall meeting inside Palmdale's City Council Chambers. "Just because we got a lot of space, a lot of dirt up here . . .