For now, judge will not appoint receiver at troubled LA juvies

LOS ANGELES (CN) — A state court judge has denied a request by California Attorney General Rob Bonta to appoint a receiver to oversee Los Angeles County’s troubled and unsafe juvenile halls.

At a packed hearing on Friday, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Peter Hernandez said he couldn’t grant the AG’s request at this time because of confusing information about conditions at the halls, including to what extent the county has completed more than 500 tasks required in a 2021 agreement with the state.

“I’m not ending the inquiry here today,” Hernandez stressed. “The biggest issue with this case is the lack of clarity.”

Instead, the judge says he intends to hold an evidentiary hearing to question witnesses about obligations like staffing and data management before he decides what steps might be needed to bring the county in compliance.

“There is no question in my mind about the hard work that needs to be done,” Hernandez said.

Bonta says the county is making “glacial” progress in fixing chronic safety and legal issues at the center. In an application for the court, he said that relying on the county to bring its own juvenile halls into compliance “would result only in infliction of further harm on youth and further waste of taxpayer dollars.”

In July, he asked Hernandez to give a receiver total control over management and operations at the juvenile halls. That would include setting budgets, procuring goods, hiring and firing staff and any other critical decisions.

Representing the county, attorney Robert Dugdale said they welcomed intervention by the court because of confusion over what compliance means given the myriad tasks the county has been asked to complete.

“We need a referee to call balls and strikes,” the lawyer said. “We need a clear roadmap.”

In 2021, the county agreed to a stipulated judgement aimed at fixing its troubled juvenile hall system, which has been plagued by drugs, violence and child abuse accusations. And yet according to Bonta, the county still is out of compliance on 75% of the judgement’s provisions.

In fact, Bonta said, conditions have continued to deteriorate. In July, he outlined some of the issues. Among them: inadequate staffing, poor oversight and a failure to prevent staff “from instigating or encouraging youth-on-youth assaults.”

After years of noncompliance and substandard conditions, two Los Angeles County juvenile halls were shut down in 2023.

That same year, an 18-year-old died of a drug overdose at a juvenile treatment center. Drug overdoses have remained commonplace in the system since then.

In March, authorities filed criminal charges against 30 juvenile detention officers who they said organized and oversaw 69 “gladiator fights” over the course of a six-month period in 2023 at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey. That same facility has also seen a riot and an escape attempt.

Last year, the Board of State and Community Corrections told the county to close Los Padrinos again. The head of the county probation department ignored the order. Later, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge ordered the county to empty out the facility.

During a June site visit to Los Padrinos, a court-appointed monitor called the conditions shameful, noting that “the facility and youth rooms are extremely dirty, unkept, and covered in graffiti.” In a report, he called some of the living units uninhabitable and said the medical unit was not sanitary.

The county’s juvenile halls are wracked by staffing shortages, thanks to high rates of extended leave and employees who simply don’t show up to work. Those shortages impacted the facilities’ ability to provide medical care, education and other programming, the monitor said.

“Youth idleness due to the lack of meaningful and consistent programming … has contributed to increased incidents of violence, use of force, and injuries to youth and staff,” the monitor said in a written declaration filed with the court.

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