Los Angeles County supervisors agreed on Tuesday: The probation department is failing.

Many officers say they are too traumatized to come to work. living spaces for young people

expired

and programming

is scarce

. The board just expelled the most recent one

Department head

the ninth probation officer to come and go in two decades.

Within months, a crisis-plagued department could face its biggest yet: a state-ordered shutdown

of his childhood halls

by the California Board of State and Community Corrections. The unprecedented decision by state regulators could

,

see the corridors closed and the young people to juvenile detention

facilities outside the province in other provinces

.

With a few months left for a dramatic course correction, the Board of Trustees on Tuesday unanimously approved three motions to overhaul the troubled department. The motions aim to reduce the number of teenagers in the care departments,

find suitable places to house young offenders arriving in the county from the state’s juvenile detention centers

and strengthen the Department of Youth Development, a new rehabilitation-focused agency that supervisors hope will one day replace the Probation Department.

Supervisor Janice Hahn, who co-authored one of the motions, said she hoped the board’s actions could try to right that ship.

goods

willing

row in the same direction. But we need a boat we can row, and so far it’s full of holes and seems to be sinking every day, Hahn said. We fail miserably.

The board agreed on this point. Supervisors Holly Mitchell and Lindsey Horvath, who co-authored the motions to increase early release and strengthen the Department of Youth Development, called the conditions appalling and absolutely unacceptable. Supervisor Hilda Solis said she was extremely frustrated and wanted to see better cooperation with probation unions.

With the vote on Tuesday, the board asked the chief probation officer, along with other county agencies involved in juvenile justice, to work with the district attorney to release everyone from the hallways.

and camps

that they can. According to the motion, that could include teenagers being held for a crime

or

probation violations and those expected to be released in the next two months.

The department’s inability to meet minimum obligations to the youth in its care is a painfully clear demonstration of the need to depopulate the halls urgently, the motion said. With only a few months to achieve full compliance, the department needs to seriously consider multiple strategies.

County officials said it was not clear how many of the approximately 466 people trapped in the department’s halls and camps could be safely released. The district attorney’s office said in a statement that it shares the board’s concerns regarding the youth and will work with our justice partners in developing safe release plans for all those who can be released.

AFSCME Room 685,

representing the county probation officers

accused the

regulators

to take on a task that belongs to the judiciary. Jonathan Byrd,

chief flight attendant

of the union, said in a statement that the vote amounted to a direct attack on the separation of powers.

The push to depopulate the halls and camps comes as the state sends more young offenders to the provinces. As California dismantles its Division of Juvenile Justice, or DJJ, and sends the youths in prisons back to their home countries, Los Angeles County struggles

with what to do with to accommodate

the

newcomers convicted of more serious crimes

.

Some are housed in Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Sylmar. One of the motions adopted on Tuesday aims to better support these young people by

increasing

personnel in these units and strengthen programming. The motion also asks the Probation Service to come up with and consider a plan to reduce the population in Nidorf

temporary

reopening Los Padrinos Youth House,

which closed in 2019

.

Supervisor Kathryn Barger said she and Horvath took a tour of Nidorf

last month

. She said the visit made it clear that there was no plan to host DJJ youth

nor an urgency to meet the needs of the young people already in the facility

.

Barger said she had found the conditions appalling. Teenagers tossed stomach-churning breakfasts straight into the trash. Young people sat in the common room and had nothing to do. One told her he needed it

Unpleasant

to complete his

training to be released

. But no

An

showed up to teach him.

We’re paying for I don’t know what, Barger said. Bottom line, something needs to change.

Time is running out as the threat of a state-ordered closure of the two

youth halls

looms over the province. The California Board of State and Community Corrections

to 11 years old government agency that carries out inspections in detention centers for adults and juveniles,

recently discovered 39 areas of non-compliance across the country

two

youth halls.

The shortcomings vary, many of them continuing problems from recent inspections, young people locked in their rooms for too long, young people not getting enough time away from home, staff not trained in current policies on the use of force.

the

are state regulators

is expected to decide at a meeting this spring whether the

Hello

down if the board cannot fix all 39

of the

problems and agree. The board meets again in April and mid-June.

Such an order would put the probation service in unfamiliar waters.

The BSCC has never ordered any facility evacuated, Tracie Cone, a spokesperson for the Board of State and Community Correction, wrote in an email. Usually provinces fix their shortcomings.

It is not clear where the young people are going. County officials appeared to be bracing for the worst, writing in Tuesday’s board of directors motion to depopulate the camps that the youth in ward care could pay the worst price of this potential order, including placement outside the county and transfers to the adult system.

Cone said it would be up to the county to decide where the youth would go, though she said state regulations prohibit the county from transferring youth to an adult facility.

story can end here to print

The issues discussed Tuesday were familiar to Adrian Reynosa, who was released from Nidorf in December after two years in the troubled facility. He said his education was spotty due to staffing issues, his food was mostly inedible, and

activities

were few and far between.

Of course they’re going to say everyone fights and does this and that, he said. But what can ultimately be done?

After reviewing Tuesday’s meeting, Reynosa said he wasn’t sure the motions were the turning point they were

framed

like it

He has heard these promises before.

Probation there said they were going to do so many things for us. They’re going to make the staff better, the food better, this and that, he said. It’s still the same.