Stands

regulators

to have

Los Angeles County officials warned that they

probably probably

The provinces are shutting down two long-troubled juvenile halls in an unprecedented order that would further destabilize the nation’s largest juvenile justice system and leave officials scrambling to find suitable places for hundreds of youths in their care.

In a letter

Thursday

to Interim Probation Chief Karen Fletcher, the California Board of State and Community Corrections said

It

would

to decide

in three weeks or Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Sylmar and Central Juvenile Hall in downtown LA two facilities that the board has repeatedly found do not comply with state regulations will have to close.

The board determined that the district’s youth halls had historically been “unsuitable” to house youths, but gave time to the probation department to file a “corrective action plan.”

comply with

with state regulations.

But the most recent plan submitted by the probation department lacked specificity or a timeline for improvement, according to the letter, which said there will be no opportunity this time for the county to correct course after the vote.

If the board determines that the facilities are not suitable for the incarceration of juveniles, the county must vacate the juvenile halls within 60 days of the determination, wrote Allison Ganter, deputy director of the board.

The probation department did not answer an email with questions on Friday.

County officials initially believed they had time until state regulators met in mid-June to address the myriad of issues the agency uncovered within the two facilities at the beginning of the year. Between Central and Nidorf, the

state governance

found 39 areas of non-compliance, many of which resulted from the departments’ staffing crisis. Problems included young people being confined to their rooms for too long, not being given enough time away from home and staff not being properly trained in the agency’s use of force.

On March 14, the county submitted an eight-page plan to the state agency, which

civil servants

hoped that the facilities would become compliant again.

But Ganter wrote Thursday that the board found the plan inadequate because it did not fully address critical staffing issues. She said the board now planned to decide on April 13 whether to evacuate the facilities, leaving the probation department just three weeks to

Overview

an overhaul dramatic enough to convince regulators to keep the facilities open.

A spokesperson for the county’s chief executive office said the county is working quickly to prepare a “supplemental action plan” that addresses the agency’s concerns and anticipates receiving “technical assistance from the state to ensure a timely to achieve a turnaround”.

The threat of closure is the latest in a long series of calamities for the probation service in the past two years.

Chief Adolfo Gonzales was fired earlier this month after a Times investigation found he overturned a decision to fire a supervisor amid a controversial video that showed officers chasing a teenager and putting his legs over his head bows, despite the fact that he did not appear to resist them.

That case is now the subject of separate investigations by the LA County District Attorney’s Office and the Office of the Inspector General.

Last November, a Times investigation detailed months of chaos in Central and Nidorf. Fearing increased violence in the hallways, officers began shouting en masse, leaving the hallways severely understaffed and prompting the widespread use of lockdowns.

Due to the flimsy staffing situation, young people were often isolated and had limited access to education or therapy.

Last month, a probation officer and a youth recently transferred to the county’s Department of Juvenile Justice were both stabbed in separate incidents at Nidorf’s Secure Youth Track Facility, which houses youths charged with serious crimes.

included

murder and assault.

Raymond Bradford Jr., who turned 18 while in custody, has been charged with multiple attempted murders of a peace official, documents show. He pleaded not guilty. Several officers were listed as victims of the attack, but it was unclear how seriously injured they were. The union that

which

representing regular probation officers declined to comment.

In the second stabbing, probation officers were warned that some youths may have conspired to hurt the victim, said Sam Lewis, a member of the Probation Oversight Commission. Lewis said he asked probation officers not to house the victim near the young person who eventually assaulted him, but his concerns were ignored.

“I want to say this emphatically: we are lucky that no one was killed,” Lewis told the commission last month. If you have a director or supervisor who wants to tell you, “Don’t move a young person to this facility, it will harm that young person and harm the staff,” and you ignore that anyway, that either tells me you are incompetent. , you don’t care, or you are somehow treacherous.

The probation service has not answered questions about either attack.

On Friday afternoon, the county’s Board of Supervisors met in closed session to discuss next steps after receiving the state’s letter. Board Chair Janice Hahn said in a statement that the session was held to find a path forward to keep both the youth in our halls and our staff safe and supported.

The closed meeting comes just three days after the board voted on three motions to overhaul the troubled department. The motions asked the Trial Department to work to reduce the number of teens in the ward care and find suitable places to house young offenders arriving in the county from the states youth facilities, among other requests.

Following the nearly three-hour private session on Friday, Supervisor Kathryn Barger said in a statement that the board had asked Fletcher to “find solutions that provide youth with proper care and rehabilitation while under county supervision.”

“We have to get this right,” she said.

If they don’t, the province has just two months to find places for the approximately 380 children housed in the two halls.

This number could grow in the coming months as California closes its juvenile justice department and sends more youths in state facilities back to their home countries. While it is believed that the youths would go to Nidorf’s Secure Youth Track Facility, or SYTF, the lack of programming at the facility and the recent violence have raised concerns about the housing of those returning from state facilities in Nidorf.

Wende Julien, the head of the Probation Oversight Commission, said the department’s watchdog group had repeatedly recommended the department move these youths from the Secure Youth Track Facility to Campus Kilpatrick in Malibu or Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey, which opened in 2019. was closed. happened. The probation department has made very little progress, including only 11 juveniles being transferred to Kilpatrick with the remainder remaining at Barry J. Nidorf. wrote Julien in a statement. … Although the youth prone to SYTF currently only make up about 20% of the juvenile facility population, the Probation Committee has recommended moving them to a more appropriate and rehabilitative location for their well-being and addressing Barry’s recurring problems tackle J Nidorf youth hall. She said the Oversight Commission has not received a plan from the probation department regarding evacuation of halls. Tracie Cone, a spokesperson for the Board of State and Community Corrections, previously said the board has no role in deciding where the county should move youth, though she noted that state rules prohibit the county from sending youth to adult facilities. move. She declined to comment on the board’s letter to Fletcher.