Judge delays decision on closing Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has delayed a decision on whether to close Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall until Jan. 10, giving the county’s Probation Department three more weeks to show it can improve conditions at the failing facility without the court’s intervention.

Los Padrinos is currently out of compliance with California’s minimum standards due to a seemingly insurmountable staffing crisis and should have transferred all youth out of the facility by Dec. 12 under state law, but county officials have defiantly kept the Downey facility running and maintain there is no alternative available.

Judge Miguel Espinoza questioned and heard arguments from the Probation Department, the District Attorney’s Office and the Public Defender’s Office during a hearing Monday, Dec. 23, involving a juvenile accused of murder. During his introduction, the judge made it clear he does not consider Los Padrinos a safe place for the 235 youth held inside and described them as being exposed to “pervasive violence,” fentanyl and prolonged periods of isolation.

“This is not a properly functioning system,” Espinoza said.

But throughout the hearing, the judge continuously circled back to the same question: Will closing Los Padrinos cause more harm than leaving it open?

The District Attorney’s Office and Probation argued it would, insisting that transferring detainees out of Los Padrinos would exacerbate the very issues that have put the juvenile hall at risk. Even if another facility existed that was large enough to take the youth, a change of buildings would not solve the county’s short staffing and would likely lead to more instability, to more employees calling out sick and to further delays in providing the educational and recreational services required under state law, according to testimony from Probation Chief Guillermo Viera Rosa.

“Any move would make matters significantly worse,” he said.

Viera Rosa blamed the department’s staffing crisis on employment protections offered to probation officers who can’t or won’t work. Probation has made headway on reducing “no-call, no-show” absences through discipline, but a significant portion of the agency’s employees have medical notes preventing them from working in the juvenile hall, or still call out ahead of their shifts every day, he said. He put those call-outs at 12% to 18% of the institution’s workforce. Officers have repeatedly expressed concerns for their safety and say the short staffing has led to excessively long shifts that expose them to additional risks.

The probation chief told the judge a recent emergency proclamation by the Board of Supervisors will make a difference by allowing the department to request mutual aid from other probation departments, to entice more lateral transfers with $24,000 bonuses and to deploy “disaster service workers” from other county departments to free up sworn peace officers from administrative duties.

“If I didn’t believe we could do this, I wouldn’t be here before you,” Viera Rosa said.

The emergency proclamation and Los Angeles County’s upcoming appeal to the Board of State and Community Corrections, the state agency that determined Los Padrinos must close, “demonstrate the circumstances related to Los Padrinos are in a rapid state of flux,” Espinoza said.

As part of the continuance, Espinoza ordered probation officials to submit a report before the next hearing Jan. 10 detailing every step taken to improve conditions at Los Padrinos between now and then.

In a statement following the hearing, the Probation Department said it is “working arduously to collaborate with the court, state officials, community partners, and other stakeholders to resolve this issue in a manner that is both effective and sustainable.”

It’s still unclear what would happen to the youth if Los Padrinos is closed. The BSCC has offered to assist the Probation Department “with identifying other suitable facilities or portions of facilities for use as a juvenile hall,” but the county has not asked for help yet, according to the letter to the court. The BSCC’s filing stressed that Los Padrinos is not an outlier and included a timeline showing how L.A. County has repeatedly fallen in and out of compliance since 2018.

Viera Rosa has reached out to probation chiefs across the state to see if other counties could take some, or all, of the youth in custody at Los Padrinos, but no one else has the space, he said during the hearing.

A spokesperson for the Orange County Probation Department confirmed discussions took place with L.A. County officials. Orange county “does not have the capacity to house any number of L.A. County youth at our county youth detention facilities and has been advised such a transfer would “face legal challenges,” according to a statement.

“OC Probation must ensure capacity and staffing is available to provide required services to Orange County youth,” the department wrote in a response.

Los Padrinos is L.A. County’s only “juvenile hall,” meaning it houses “predisposition” youth who are awaiting court hearings and have not been sentenced by a judge. Other facilities, such as the juvenile camps and the Barry J. Nidorf Secure Youth Treatment Facility, are approved to house “post-disposition” youth, Viera Rosa noted.

Housing two different populations in one facility would not be unprecedented, however. Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall — before its closure in 2023 — was permitted to operate alongside the SYTF that remains there today.

Frank Santoro, the assistant head deputy for the district attorney’s juvenile division, argued that releasing youth to their communities created an “obvious, foreseeable harm to the public,” while moving them to another facility would cause services to falter.

State law prioritizes protecting the public above protecting the youth in custody, he said, describing the population as “exceedingly violent” and “the vast majority” as gang members.

According to Espinoza, about 81 youth at Los Padrinos are being held on allegations of murder or attempted murder, 51 for robbery or attempted robbery, 26 for assault with a deadly weapon, battery or domestic violence, 18 for assault with a firearm, 17 for carrying a loaded firearm and 12 for carjacking, among other crimes.

Michael Theberge, an attorney with the Public Defender’s Office, accused the District Attorney’s Office of “fearmongering” and compared it to the “superpredator” rhetoric of the 1990s. Theberge argued Probation could have begun working on plans, with the BSCC’s assistance, to transfer youth elsewhere months ago and instead it chose to take an adversarial stance against the state agency.

Other beds exist at county facilities and could have been converted to use with the juvenile hall population, he said.

“I don’t know how it could get worse than Los Padrinos,” he said.

Theberge pointed to the discovery of an alleged staff-run “fight club” earlier this year and other instances of abuse and misconduct as evidence that probation’s faults extend beyond staffing numbers. If Espinoza allows Los Padrinos to stay open, it would undermine the state law requiring “unsuitable” facilities to close within 60 days and there would be no reason for the law to exist if it isn’t enforced, he said.

“What is the consequence for the Probation Department repeatedly failing to make Los Padrinos a suitable facility?” he asked. “All we’re asking is for the court to follow the law … to order them to comply with the law.”

During the hearing, Espinoza noted Los Padrinos — if allowed to remain open — could end up back in the same situation by March if it hasn’t improved other areas of noncompliance identified by state inspectors.