All this week we’re resuming our series on juvenile justice, Inside and Out. Today we begin by taking you to a mysterious place, a place that’s shut off to the public and the media. We’re talking about youth prisons—Illinois has eight of them. Thousands of kids are sent every year to be rehabilitated, educated, equipped with skills, and to be turned away from crime before it becomes a lifestyle.

We’ve begun to get a look inside and WBEZ’s Robert Wildeboer takes us to the sprawling St. Charles prison campus 40 miles west of Chicago. Behind layers of fencing and barbed wire in a cluster of buildings on a gently sloping hill is Owens cottage, where our story starts. Rob continues this story tomorrow looking at how little education some kids are getting.

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