The Transformation of Camarillo State Hospital
Nestled in the hills of the Santa Monica Mountains just over the Ventura County line lies the 23rd edition to the CSU System. Opening its doors for the first time in August 2002 is the newly acquainted Cal State Channel Islands. The University is offering its students academic programs focusing on Liberal Studies, Science, and Business with a side of History A la Carte.
Prior to the doors opening in 2002 as a respected institution of higher learning the University grounds were home to some of California’s most mentally insane, better known as Camarillo State Hospital. The Hospital opened its doors in 1936 and was soon home to thousands upon thousand of alcoholics, pedophiles, and those with mental illness, and retardation with some being admitted as early as their pre-teens years.
Tales of torture and unruly treatment of patients soon became widespread throughout history. Shock Treatments and Hydrotherapy (A warm bath followed by being wrapped in ice cold towels) were all daily occurrences according to former residents of the facility. The Asylum underwent many investigations exposing some of the institution darkest secrets. According to one investigation guards and inmates abused and even killed each other.
As time progressed the Hospital began to implement new and healthier policies to ensure the growth of their inmates as opposed to keeping them only locked up. The Hospital’s doors were closed for good in 1997. Former President Ronald Reagan instituted a new legislative mandate of deinstitutionalization ending an era. However, history has chosen not to remain silent.
Tales of ghostly apparitions, objects moving with no known reasonable explanation, and voices of children laughing have been said to be heard in the hospital’s once designated children’s area. The back road entrance to the hospital also seems to be quite the magnet for unexplained phenomena, as it has hosted numerous unexplained car accidents, claiming the life of one individual whose autopsy showed a otherwise healthy woman who happened to suffer a freak brain embolism.
In the year 2000 renovations began to take place, transforming one of the state’s most notorious forensic mental institutions into what is now known as Cal State Channel Islands. The buildings have the same aesthetic presence they had in the past however on the inside of these buildings cells have been converted into classrooms and dorms. Many buildings on the campus still remain under quarantine while some classrooms in the elementary area still have the writing of children on the old blackboards.
Four years into its transformation one of the mottos for the University reads “New thinking for a New Century.” The future brings with it a new hope for thinking minds and an opportunity for reconciliation and healing among its survivors.
