Fred C. Nelles
Fred C. Nelles Youth Correctional Facility
We were given the opportunity to visit the Fred C. Nelles Youth Correctional Facility in Whittier. We did a day time investigation and found no evidence of paranormal activity during our visit. But there have been many claims from security officers and movie production employees of paranormal activities. We took a camera, recorder and EMF meters, to do a daytime investigation. Our findings from our investigation of the location indicate that there is no paranormal activity. There is a need for an in deep investigation to investigate the claims that people that have been here make.
The State of California did hire a Priest to bless Fred C. Nelles Youth Correction Facility to do away all demons that are claim to be there. The location is off limits to the public. Only people allow on site are film crew people when they rent location out to the studios.
We thank the staff of Fred C. Nelles Youth Correctional Facility for allowing us a small tour of location.
History of location:
The Fred C. Nelles Youth Correctional Facility has been, for the last century, a somewhat mysterious, but conspicuous sector of Whittier Blvd., in Whittier, California, Whittier Boulevard. Operated by the California Youth Authority, now part of California Department of Corrections, it once quartered refractory young people until it declared bankruptcy and closed its gates in June 2004. It had been the oldest juvenile facility in the state. One of the major factors that contributed to the closing of the facility was the limit on property taxes enacted by Proposition 13 in 1978, which severely diminished the funding of all schools. Nelles was open for 113 years. Its 74 acres have become overgrown and obscure the facility that has intrigued residents for a lifetime.
Originally it was called the Whittier State School, when it opened in July 1891 as a reform school for boys and girls. The March 11, 1889 Act of the California Legislature authorized the establishment of a school for juvenile offenders. At the time, Whittier was only a small community with plenty of open land, and the idea of a juvenile correction facility on the outskirts of town did not threaten the little town's residents.
The state school was considered to have some of the best job training and music courses in the state for the first part of the twentieth century. In 1916, girls were no longer admitted and "Boy's School was added to the name. It was renamed 'Fred C. Nelles School' for Boys in 1941, to honor the longtime former superintendent of the school from 1912 to 1927. The 'For Boys' was eliminated from the name around 1970. In Roosevelt Hall, the dormitory, there was the complete lack of privacy. In fact, wards had to earn a private cell. The high school boys team was a notorious football rival of Whittier High School, but "every time someone broke out, all the Whittier schools would be notified," inevitably upsetting the community. Five guards were fired In 1990, for allegedly physically abusing several inmates in their dormitories. It was also reported that chemical restraints were used in 274 incidents. Later in the 20th century, the daily population averaged 439 young people; the school had at one time housed nearly 1,000 wards. The last boy left the school in May 2004.
No state refers to its juvenile correctional institutions as "reform schools" today. In California, they are under the auspices of California Division of Juvenile Justice and reducing the number of occupants of these facilities is a priority in the juvenile justice system. Only the most habitual offenders are now placed in detention centers. In an attempt to make the incarceration conform to more sociological and sociocultural norms, and in response to the rising number of young female offenders, many such institutions have been made coeducational.