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Not terribly long ago, the sterilization of mentally ill patients was common practice in the United States.

Of 32 states that had eugenics laws, none used the practice as much as California. (Virginia was a distant second.)

From 1919 to 1952, California’s state homes and hospitals sterilized about 20,000 people under eugenics laws that were intended to cure societal ills by halting the procreation of people deemed inferior.

California officially apologized in 2003. Yet the victims were never compensated.

Now, after several years of scholarly detective work, a team of researchers have created a detailed catalog of the California victims. Analyzing the data, they estimate that as many as 831 individuals, with an average age of 88, could still be alive.