Ex-Commune Studied As Juvenile Prison Site

Sat., May 6, 1995

Associated Press

A delegation of Oregon state officials will visit the abandoned Rajneesh commune Sunday to consider it as a possible site for a juvenile corrections center.

Rick Hill, Oregon’s head of juvenile corrections, said the former Rancho Rajneesh is one of several sites being considered as the state searches for new places to keep the rising number of juvenile offenders who are in custody.

Hill will be part of the contingent that will fly to the 64,000-acre Big Muddy Ranch to tour the former headquarters of Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Several legislators and lobbyists also will be part of the group.

Officials say the remote ranch, near the tiny town of Antelope in Wasco County, holds promise as a future site for a vocational training center.

The commune was abandoned in 1985 when Rajneesh left the country after pleading guilty to immigration fraud charges. The complex includes apartment buildings, a shopping center, an 80,000-square-foot meeting hall, a carpenter shop and a dairy.

Montana rancher Dennis Washington purchased the ranch five years ago from an insurance company that had foreclosed on the commune’s mortgage.

Ranch hands tend about 500 cattle that roam the vast ranch today. Most of the buildings haven’t been used since the last of the guru’s followers left.

“It’s essentially the same as when it was occupied by Bhagwan Rajneesh and his followers,” said Russ Ritter, who heads corporate communications for Washington in Missoula. “The buildings have been maintained since Mr. Washington acquired it.”

The bill, which has passed the Senate and is before the Ways and Means Committee, calls for a network of juvenile lockups, militarystyle youth camps and residential academies for teenage offenders.

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