Global Courant 2023-05-03 06:22:41
Los Angeles County leaders plan to reopen a shuttered youth building and deploy reserve sheriff officers to work in the facilities as they race to resolve a personnel crisis that threatens state regulators to close the county’s two remaining youth halls.
The steps are among more than a dozen changes to the probation department that Los Angeles County supervisors unanimously approved Tuesday as part of a plan to restore a juvenile justice system in crisis and prevent state intervention.
Under the plan, the county would reopen Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall, which closed in 2019 amid dwindling population and allegations of staff abuse. About $28 million would be put into upgrading Los Padrinos, as well as Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Sylmar and Central Juvenile Hall in Boyle Heights. And the Sheriff’s Department would send reserve officers – voluntary members of the department – to staff the long troubled youth halls.
The vote on the plan came less than a day after Karen Fletcher, interim chief of probation, resigned after a brief two-month stint as chief of the department.
Fletcher told The Times she was ready to retire after working on probation for more than three decades. She said she handed in her resignation on Monday night and her last day is May 19.
“After nearly 34 years in probation, it’s time to retire and start the next chapter of my life,” she wrote in a farewell memo to staff.
Fletcher became interim director in March after the board fired then probation chief Adolfo Gonzales. Due to her abrupt resignation, the county is now looking for a permanent director and an interim director at the same time. Board chair Janice Hahn said Tuesday the board would meet in closed session to discuss finding a replacement for Fletcher’s position.
During Fletcher’s brief time at the helm, state oversight of the district’s youth departments only intensified. The California Justice Department accused the county of ignoring the terms of a 2021 settlement to resolve the appalling conditions at the juvenile facilities. The county and DOJ are expected to appear in court on May 9.
And the California Board of State and Community Corrections threatened to close the halls after repeatedly finding them not in compliance with a long list of state regulations. The board has scheduled a meeting for May 23 to decide whether to evict Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall and Central Juvenile Hall.
County leaders hope the plan voted on Tuesday will appease state regulators and prosecutors. But it sparked outrage from youth lawyers, who accused the county of betraying a promise it made to break out of prisons and recklessly move staff from one chronically dysfunctional department to another.
“If we take even a moment to look at Men’s Central Jail and what happened there at the hands of the sheriff – to think that the same body would somehow benefit our young people feels very short-sighted” said Milinda Kakani, director of youth affairs. justice at the Children’s Defense Fund.
Brooke Harris, chief of the Pacific Juvenile Defender Center, called the deployment of sheriff’s officers “extremely troubling.”
“Admitting reserve sheriffs who do not have the requisite training or experience to work with vulnerable youth is a massive miscalculation at best and a recipe for unthinkable results at worst,” she said. “Juveniles in LA juvenile facilities have been abused and neglected long enough.”
The sheriff’s department did not comment on the substance of the motion.
The plan received little fanfare from the Supervisory Board. It was made public Friday evening as part of the county’s supplemental agenda — a second iteration of the agenda for proposals that met later in the week. And a vote was taken on Tuesday as part of the assent calendar – in which a package of motions is voted on without comment in one sitting.
Chief Executive Fesia Davenport wrote in a board letter that the plan was intended to “ensure an optimal and constitutional level of care for probation youth” and would not “increase the footprint of probation”. She wrote that the sheriff’s reserve officers would receive training that would give them the “skills necessary to work with probation youth.”
The proposal would also reshuffle the youth currently split between Barry J. Nidorf and Central Juvenile Hall. The approximately 275 predisposed youths in the province’s custody would be moved to Los Padrinos. Barry J. Nidorf would now only house youths charged with serious crimes, including murder and assault. And Central would be used in part as a law enforcement admissions unit and a medical hub for youth in the county’s parole centers and camps.
It is not clear when the changes outlined in the plan will be implemented. A county spokesman said a “timeline is being developed.”
The letter says state regulators must conduct a “pre-inspection” of Los Padrinos before the county can begin transferring youths to the facility.
