A state oversight board is giving Los Angeles County another month to fix its troubled juvenile halls, but board members warned the county must demonstrate real progress in that time frame or the facilities would still be declared “unsuitable” and shut down.
Though the Board of State and Community Corrections unanimously approved the delay, board Chair Linda Penner told L.A. County officials they had “repeatedly” failed the young people in their custody and expressed frustration with the county’s inability to right its juvenile halls.
“We went through this process at the end of last year and on the heels of that, we’ve turned around and heard the conditions in L.A. County have not improved,” said Penner, a former chief probation officer for Fresno County.
“It sounds trite, but I struggle with trusting L.A. County going forward, and with that struggle comes young people in your care, who aren’t given adequate programming, that are locked in a room overnight and unable to use restrooms, and who are being asked to sit around and watch TV and play video games all day,” she said.
Penner said the extra time would allow the state regulatory board’s staff to further study the county’s proposed remedies and to embed inspectors into the juvenile halls to verify the county is following through with its promises.
BSCC staff members recommended the delay because L.A. County has “has proactively moved to make improvements at both facilities,” has submitted a supplemental plan to address the problems and has hired new key personnel, according to a report.
Progress needed by May
BSCC will now re-convene in mid-May to reassess the status of the county’s two juvenile halls. If the facilities are deemed “unsuitable” at that time, L.A. County will need to immediately address the remaining issues within 60 days or it will be unable to house youths at those locations.
This isn’t the first time the county juvenile halls have been in the state’s cross hairs. The state agency previously declared both the Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Sylmar and Central Juvenile Hall near downtown L.A. “unsuitable for the confinement of youth” in September 2021 and then Central Juvenile Hall, by itself, unsuitable again in June 2022.
The county attempted to evade an inspection at Central earlier that year by transferring all of the youths out of the juvenile hall just days before inspectors arrived.
Both facilities managed to avoid a shutdown, but then once again failed a follow-up inspection in November 2022, triggering the process all over again.
Earlier this week, the California Department of Justice asked a Superior Court judge to sanction L.A. County if it does not address “illegal and unsafe conditions” at the two juvenile halls. The DOJ secured a judgment against L.A. County back in 2021, but now says the county has not only failed to make the required improvements, it is now “regressing in areas where some progress has been achieved.”
Recent reports have found drugs are being smuggled into the facilities due to lax security and youths are being forced to urinate in their rooms because staff will not take them to the bathroom at night.
‘Snowball effect’ on staffing
Much of the county juvenile system’s problems stem from an ongoing staffing crisis. Interim Chief Probation Officer Karen Fletcher told the BSCC that the two facilities need about 340 people per day to cover all four shifts, but that due to an excessive amount of callouts, each has only about 200 to 250 active staff members who are not on light duty.
Fletcher described the staffing problem as a snowball effect, in which employees calling out cause other employees to have to work longer shifts, which in turn causes more staff to call off to avoid having to work shifts that can extend beyond 24 hours. The low turnout also creates additional safety concerns that exacerbate the callouts, Fletcher said.
The county has created flat rate incentives of up to $17,000 for employees who put in additional hours, has reassigned dozens of field officers to the juvenile halls and is in the process of hiring a flood of new recruits, Fletcher said.
“Since January 13 of this year, we’ve graduated three juvenile correction officer academies, resulting in 62 staff assigned at our halls,” she said. “Our goal is to have an additional 145 graduates by the end of this year.”
Advocates for justice reform called for the shuttering of the juvenile halls at Thursday’s meeting, saying L.A. County has repeatedly failed to make improvements for years now.
Erin Palacios, a staff attorney for the Youth Justice Center, warned the board could be sued if it failed to declare the juvenile halls unsuitable, as state law considers a facility unsuitable if it has failed to file an “approved correct action plan” with the BSCC within 60 days of receiving a notice of noncompliance. L.A. County has filed a corrective action plan, as of March 14, but BSCC has not approved it.
Workers ‘scared for safety’
Several speakers at Thursday’s meeting said they worked at the juvenile halls and alleged that workers are scared for their safety because detainees are not held accountable when they attack or harm officers.
Sose Aslanian, a social worker with the county, said her co-workers at the juvenile halls are “being verbally and physically assaulted on a daily basis.” Most recently, an officer was stabbed by a youth at Barry J. Nidorf on April 10, according to the L.A. County Deputy Probation Officers’ Union.
The officer suffered severe facial lacerations, the union wrote in a post on its website.
Critics dubious
The BSCC’s decision to grant L.A. County more time was met with mixed reactions.
Melinda Kakani, director of youth justice at the Children’s Defense Fund California, said the board kicked the can down the road.
Kakani, who has watched, at times with disgust, the problems at LA County juvenile halls and the Probation Department for years, said it would have been better had the board issued an unsuitable designation and began closure of the two county juvenile halls.
“It would have given Los Angeles County the opportunity to invest in something different, instead of investing in the status quo,” she said in an interview.
She does not have faith the county can make the necessary changes within a month.
“We’ve been here for years, for decades. And we have cycled in and out of suitability and unsuitability,” she said. “We are doing so at the expense of young people.”
‘Failure is not an option’
Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn, the board chair, offered her appreciation for the BSCC’s decision in an emailed statement.
“It means we have more time to make real progress and do right by these young people and our staff working in our halls. Failure is not an option,” she wrote.
Supervisor Kathryn Barger expressed similar optimism that the county can turn around its troubled juvenile halls.
“This recognizes we’re making some progress using a range of hiring strategies — from the Probation Department fast tracking acquiring more staff to our Board hiring a former BSCC member whose juvenile justice expertise will help the Probation Department navigate its next steps,” Barger wrote in an emailed statement. “We have a short window of time to continue showing progress, so we must continue working with urgency and focus. We can’t let up.”
Last month, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved several motions to address the conditions in the halls. The board’s motions called for the release of eligible youth from custody and additional programming for those still in the juvenile halls, upgraded facilities and hiring of more staff.
The supervisors also hired Guillermo Viera Rosa as the county’s new chief strategist for juvenile operations. Viera Rosa previously led California’s adult parole division and was a member of the BSCC.
