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Oakley
Unincorporated community
Oakley Youth Development Center
OakleyLocation within the state of Mississippi
Coordinates: 32°13′04″N 90°30′11″W / 32.21778°N 90.50306°W / 32.21778; -90.50306
Country	United States
State	Mississippi
County	Hinds
Elevation	194 ft (59 m)
Time zone	UTC-6 (Central (CST))
• Summer (DST)	UTC-5 (CDT)
ZIP codes	39154
Area code	601
GNIS feature ID	675128
Website	mdhs.state.ms.us/dys_instit.html

Oakley is the site of the Oakley Youth Development Center (OYDC), formerly known as Oakley Training School is a juvenile correctional facility of the Mississippi Department of Human Services located in unincorporated Hinds County, Mississippi, near Raymond. It is Mississippi's sole juvenile correctional facility for children adjudicated into the juvenile correctional system.

Oakley has a capacity of 150 students. Oakley is located on a 1,068-acre (432 ha) plot of land surrounded by agricultural fields; the State of Mississippi states that the complex is about a 30-minute commute from Jackson. Grantier Architecture designed a 6,598 square feet (613.0 m) building of the school. Only those who have been adjudicated delinquent for a felony or who has been adjudicated delinquent three or more times for a misdemeanor offense may be committed to Oakley. Oakley may retain custody of a child until the child's twentieth birthday but not for longer. The facility is subject to a 2023 Memorandum of Agreement between the United States and Mississippi for care required at the facility.

History

A post office opened at what is now the Oakley Training School in 1837.

Originally Oakley was the Oakley Farm, a prison for women in the State of Mississippi prison system. In 1894 the State of Mississippi purchased a 2,725-acre (1,103 ha) property that became the Oakley Farm, and the state housed all women in the Mississippi penal system in Oakley. A limestone crushing plant opened at Oakley; it became a financial failure. Oakley did not have very good soil, so its farming operations did not do very well. Early in the 20th century the women at Oakley were moved to the Mississippi State Penitentiary (Parchman) in Sunflower County, Mississippi. The Mississippi state prison hospital remained at Oakley. On July 21, 1913 a fire swept through the Oakley Prison Farm and killed thirty-five black prisoners. In 1925, after two white prison camps in the Mississippi penal system faced overcrowding, the state of Mississippi moved seventy-five white prisoners between the ages of 14 and 21 to the Oakley facility, turning it into a juvenile correctional facility. William B. Taylor and Tyler H. Fletcher, authors of "Profits from convict labor: Reality or myth observations in Mississippi: 1907–1934," said that Oakley was "a large and unjustifiable financial drain" until its repurposing as a juvenile facility; they said that Oakley was "a financial drain, though perhaps a more justifiable one."

Later Oakley became the Negro Juvenile Reformatory and the Black Juvenile Reformatory School. Before desegregation Oakley housed Black children of both sexes, while the Columbia Training School housed White children of both sexes; the desegregation plan around the 1970s required the state to house male children 15 and older of all races at Oakley, while males 14 and under and females were housed at Columbia.

In 1999 DYS spent $1,289,700 of U.S. Department of Justice grant money to build a 15-bed maximum security unit for girls at Oakley. Around 2008 the Mississippi Youth Justice Project advocated for the closure of Oakley. Officials from the school responded, saying that the school had made improvements since past scandals.

Education

Williams School is the provider of education, for grades 4-12.

Notable inmates

• Brenda Travis, a student at Burglund High School in McComb, Mississippi was incarcerated at Oakley Training School for participating in civil rights protests.

References

1. ^ U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Oakley Youth Development Center
2. ^ "HOUSE BILL NO. 1479 (As Sent to Governor)" (PDF). billstatus.ls.state.ms.us. Retrieved 2024-05-18.
3. "2020 CENSUS - CENSUS BLOCK MAP: Hinds County, MS" (PDF). U.S. Census Bureau. p. 13(PDF p. 14/28). Retrieved 2022-08-14. Oakley Training Schl
4. "Division of Youth Services Archived January 13, 2010, at the Wayback Machine." Mississippi Department of Human Services. Retrieved on July 1, 2010. "2375 Oakley Road | Raymond, MS 39154."
5. "Institutional Programs and Services Archived June 12, 2002, at the Wayback Machine." Mississippi Department of Human Services. Retrieved on July 21, 2010.
6. "CRIPA Investigation of Oakley and Columbia Training Schools in Raymond and Columbia, Mississippi Archived 2010-05-30 at the Wayback Machine." United States Department of Justice. June 19, 2003. 2 (2/48). Retrieved on July 21, 2010.
7. "Oakley Training School." Grantier Architecture. Retrieved on July 21, 2010.
8. "Civil Rights Division | Memorandum of Agreement Between the U.S. And the State of Mississippi". 6 August 2015.
9. "Feature Detail Report for: Oakley Post Office (historical)." U.S. Geographic Survey. Retrieved on September 26, 2011.
10. Taylor, William B. and Tyler H. Fletcher. "Profits from convict labor: Reality or myth observations in Mississippi: 1907–1934 ." Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology. Volume 5, No. 1. Page 30 (1/9). Retrieved on October 31, 2010.
11. Taylor, William B. and Tyler H. Fletcher. "Profits from convict labor: Reality or myth observations in Mississippi: 1907–1934 ." Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology. Volume 5, No. 1. Page 31 (2/9). Retrieved on October 31, 2010.
12. Taylor, William B. and Tyler H. Fletcher. "Profits from convict labor: Reality or myth observations in Mississippi: 1907–1934." Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology. Volume 5, No. 1. Page 32 (3/9). Retrieved on October 31, 2010.
13. Underwood, Felix J. "Departments of Education and Public Health Working Together." American Journal of Public Health. Volume 44, May 1954. 526 (6/29). "and the Negro Juvenile Reformatory, Oakley, Miss."
14. "Mississippi's African-American Authors." Mississippi State University. August 25, 2004. Retrieved on August 23, 2010.
15. "426 F. 2d 269 - Montgomery v. Oakley Training School." United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit. May 6, 1970. Retrieved on August 9, 2010. "There are two juvenile reform schools in Mississippi: Oakley Training School, which was all-black and Columbia Training School, which was all-white. Both schools accommodated both boys and girls. The two schools are 125 miles apart. Children are assigned to the schools by the state's juvenile judges."
16. "Mississippi Department of Corrections receives $2.8 million grant from U.S. Department of Justice Archived 2010-05-30 at the Wayback Machine." Mississippi Department of Corrections. December 13, 2001. Retrieved on January 25, 2011.
17. Mott, Ronni. "Oakley Training School: A 'Bad Model'." Jackson Free Press. November 26, 2008. Retrieved on August 9, 2010.
18. "Administrator defends Oakley Training School." WLBT. November 20, 2008. Modified on December 2, 2008. Retrieved on August 9, 2010.
19. "WILLIAMS SCHOOL". National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved 2024-09-11. 2375 OAKLEY ROAD RAYMOND, MS 39154
20. Mayer, Robert H. (14 September 2021). In the Name of Emmett till: How the Children of the Mississippi Freedom Struggle Showed Us Tomorrow. NewSouth Books. ISBN 978-1-58838-445-4.

External links

• Oakley Youth Development Center - Mississippi Department of Human Services.
• Division of Youth Services." - Mississippi Department of Human Services.

v t e Municipalities and communities of Hinds County, Mississippi, United States
County seats: Jackson and Raymond
Cities	Byram Clinton Jackson‡ Raymond
Towns	Bolton Edwards Learned Terry Utica
Unincorporated communities	Brownsville Cayuga Cynthia Midway Oakley Pocahontas
Footnotes	‡ This populated place also has portions in an adjacent county or counties
Mississippi portal United States portal

• Buildings and structures in Hinds County, Mississippi
• Prisons in Mississippi