Youth In Adult Prisons: young black prisoner with back to camera in orange prison uniform looking at white wall of doors and interior windows

Human rights group urges resentencing of tens of thousands who, convicted in their teens, have spent decades behind bars

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While locked in a California prison for juveniles, Paul Bocenegra got his first shave, sprouted his first patch of chest hair and, he said, learned to fight at that facility, dubbed "gladiator school" because of its levels of violence. "I was condemned to prison to die in a cage at 17 years old," said Bocanegra, now 48, who was tried as an adult in 1992 and served 25 years of what was supposed to be a life-without-parole prison sentence.

43-year-old juvenile offender Steven John Carlson

43-Year-Old Charged in Juvenile Court for 1984 Slaying

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A 43-year-old man faces charges in a California juvenile court for the murder of a 14-year-old classmate more than two decades ago. Steven John Carlson was arrested this week and charged with the 1984 death of Tina Faelz, a fellow student at Foothill High School in Pleasanton, Cali., near Oakland. Faelz was found stabbed to death on April 5, 1984 in a drainage culvert she used to cross under the freeway on her way home from school. Carlson, a recent parolee and registered sex-offender, was processed in juvenile court because he was 16 at the time of the crime. A hearing will be necessary before he can face adult charges.