AG asks judge to force LA County to address ‘serious ongoing deficiencies’ in juvenile halls

The California Attorney General’s Office is asking a judge to order more drastic reforms at Los Angeles County’s juvenile halls in light of the “continued deterioration” of the dangerously understaffed facilities, according to a new court filing.

The motion filed jointly by Attorney General Rob Bonta and Los Angeles County — pending court approval — builds on top of a prior judgment from 2021 by requiring additional monitoring, staffing and training at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey and the smaller Barry J. Nidorf Secure Youth Treatment Facility in Sylmar.

“The County of Los Angeles is responsible for safeguarding the safety and well-being of the children at its juvenile halls — and it has utterly failed in this responsibility to date,” Bonta said in a statement. “These new terms will strengthen oversight and accountability, and lead to necessary and overdue improvement to conditions at these facilities.”

Bonta is “hopeful that this new, expanded agreement” will address the persistent problems at the juvenile halls, but he warned he will be watching and “ready to take further action if needed.”

The new terms require monthly reports from an independent monitor, force the county to conduct timely reviews of uses of force, mandate the hiring of an ombudsman to address youth grievances, require more cameras to remove gaps in coverage, and the installation of an “electronic data system” to ensure youth are properly receiving access to “outside recreation, religious services and visitation.”

New staffing plan required

Perhaps most critically, the amended judgment “requires the county to implement a revised plan to resolve the staffing crisis that addresses required minimum staffing levels based on facility population, leave abuses, and staff recruitment, retention and wellness.” Los Angeles County has struggled to maintain adequate staffing for years due to an excessive amount of call-outs and lengthy leaves of absence that became so severe that nearly 20% of the shifts in July did not meet staffing minimums.

Bonta’s office, in a press release, stated Los Angeles County initially made progress following the enforcement of the 2021 judgment, but it wasn’t long before “the monitor again began to raise the alarm over multiple serious threats to youth safety, including the County’s failure to adequately staff the juvenile halls, to stem the flow of drugs, to prevent staff from instigating or encouraging youth-on-youth assaults, to deliver youth to medical appointments, to prevent retaliation against youth who file grievances, and to ensure cameras are installed in all areas and that video footage is reviewed, among other concerns.”

The Los Angeles County Office of Inspector General has repeatedly flagged the juvenile halls as out of compliance with the terms of the 2021 judgment. The OIG in August reported that the Probation Department failed to properly review use-of-force incidents at Los Padrinos and could not review a significant portion of the incidents at the SYTF because the camera coverage was so poor that nearly 40% of the incidents were out of view.

The Probation Department acknowledged the jointly filed motion in a statement and said it had “no immediate comment other than to underscore that our top priority remains the safety and well-being of youth in our care.”

Additional monitoring, protections

County Supervisor Kathryn Barger said she is hopeful the court will approval the stricter reporting and monitoring requirements and that she welcomes the additional scrutiny and accountability.

“I’m aware our Los Angeles County Probation Department has been working hard to course correct and meet its compliance obligations, but persistent shortcomings and big challenges persist within its system of care and rehabilitation for youth,” Barger said in a statement. “The joint motion filed with the Attorney General will bring in additional monitoring and protections that will fortify and further help ensure the safety of youth and staff.”

The facility has become so unsafe that an analysis by the Southern California News Group found that officers deployed pepper spray an average of 1.3 times per day, largely to prevent violence from escalating.

Last year, Bonta’s office secured a court order reiterating and enforcing the terms of the 2021 judgment amid growing concerns among state officials about the safety at Los Angeles County’s then two largest juvenile halls, Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall and Central Juvenile Hall. Those two facilities were ultimately shuttered by state regulators in response to the poor conditions, forcing L.A. County to scramble to reopen Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall, which closed in 2019, to house the nearly 300 youth previously locked up at Central and Barry J. Nidorf.

Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall is home to about 260 predisposition youth, meaning they have not received a sentence from a judge. Meanwhile, the Barry J. Nidorf Secure Youth Treatment Facility, located inside the former juvenile hall of the same name, has experienced fewer issues with staffing due to its smaller population of about 60 post-disposition youth, but has still been unable to adhere to other requirements in the 2021 judgment.

Los Padrinos unstable

Since Los Padrinos reopened in July, the Probation Department has struggled to stabilize the facility, despite the ongoing scrutiny from the local county oversight board, the California Department of Justice and the Board of State and Community Corrections, the regulatory agency responsible for overseeing California’s jails and juvenile halls.

The facility has experienced two escape attempts, the discovery of a potential fight club orchestrated by a staff member, and numerous failures caused by short staffing, including excessive waits for attorneys attempting to meet with their juvenile clients.

After failing inspections in late 2023, the BSCC ordered Los Padrinos to shape up or close, too, in February. The county managed to avoid the shutdown through a controversial reassigment of hundreds of probation officers from the field to the juvenile halls to beef up its staffing numbers enough to stay open.

Deadline looms for fixes

The boost from the redeployment didn’t last long, however, and by mid-2024 Los Padrinos was once again unable to fully staff the facility. In October, the BSCC again ordered Los Padrinos to fix its staffing by Dec. 12 or empty the facility.

It remains to be seen whether Los Angeles County can meet that deadline. County officials have revealed a plan to reduce the number of youth inside Los Padrinos to a more manageable level by referring those with less serious offenses to community programs and by not accepting others who should have been cited and released by law enforcement in the first place. That’s on top of ongoing efforts to recruit more officers and to convince current employees to return to work.

So far, the Probation Department’s leadership has not released any details about what the county will do if Los Padrinos is forced to close. The county does not have the capacity to transfer those youth to its other local facilities and would likely need to send them to other counties, according to experts.

Even if Los Angeles County manages to avoid closure on Dec. 12, Los Padrinos could find itself back in the exact same spot within days.

The facility failed another inspection just days after the county received the closure order in October and is now out of compliance in 10 more areas. The state’s inspectors found that both gymnasiums at Los Padrinos were unusable, and that youth were confined to their rooms without proper justification and left unattended after being pepper sprayed.

State law treats the inspections as separate. So while L.A. County is currently ordered to close if it doesn’t fix staffing by Dec. 12, it will have have until Dec. 22 to submit a plan covering the 10 additional deficiencies.

If that plan isn’t accepted, and Los Padrinos hasn’t already closed, yet another 60-day clock will begin ticking down and Los Angeles County will have until Feb. 20 to pass a new inspection or close.