[10] A limestone crushing plant opened at Oakley; it became a financial failure.

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.

[15] 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.

[16] Around 2008 the Mississippi Youth Justice Project advocated for the closure of Oakley.