Evaristo Salas Jr.

And so they were coming from all over the state.

It was basically within about eight, nine months of being there,

When I got there, there was 16 of us.

I was the 16th juvenile.

I had the most time, and I was the youngest.

A year later, there was 120 juveniles there, and a 14-year-old guy was the youngest, and the life sentence was the most.

And that just goes to show that at that time, what was going on in the counties that they were coming from, that they were just hard on juveniles.

We were there for almost 18 months and then decided they're going to transfer all the juveniles to a level four prison and sent us to a place called Qualum Bay Correctional Centre, which at that time was known as Gladiator School.

because of all the stabbings and riots and all the terrible prison stuff that goes there.

Everybody ever talked, it was like, oh, this place is horrible.

You know, it's just battle all the time.

It's war and all that kind of stuff.

But they put us there, but they segregated us from the adults still.

As soon as we turned 18, they just threw us into the general population.

I was still young, so when I went into the general population, it was the same kind of environment.

It's a level four prison, so it was even worse.

It wasn't a receding center.

So this was real prison, where if you mess up, you get stabbed or you get jumped and that kind of stuff.

The groups are real segregated.

The gangs weren't yet in control of anything, at least amongst the Hispanics.