The Informant

Juvies

Juvenile offenders at EastLake (Central) Juvenile Hall in Los Angeles, from the film, “Juvies.”

A piece in California Watch today runs down the reasoning behind Governor Jerry Brown backing off a proposal to shut down the Division of Juvenile Justice, California’s system of youth prisons. Part of the issue with closing the DJJ, according to many of those who work in and around the system, is that the patchwork of 58 county probation departments that oversee juvenile offenders on a local level is a “Wild West.” The charge is that while some counties run exemplary juvenile halls and probation systems, others do not, and there’s no dependable system for making the struggling ones better. CalWatch reporter Louis Freedberg quotes Barry Krisberg, director of the Earl Warren Institute at the UC Berkeley Law School, who says there is basically no regulation of local juvenile halls:

The state Legislature has been reluctant to enforce any clear standards, and as a result how you get treated will be radically different depending on where you end up.  If you get locked up in San Diego, you will probably get pretty decent treatment. If you get locked up in Los Angeles, you will be in some of the worst conditions in this country.

Los Angeles has stood as the embodiment of what’s wrong with shutting down the DJJ for many who advocate for better conditions for juveniles in the justice system. Sending more kids to a place like Los Angeles, Krisberg has said, would be unconscionable–worse than the state system, which Krisberg says, has its own (lesser) problems. The counter-argument has been that LA and other troubled counties simply will not change until forced to, and that shutting the DJJ could be a catalyst for change.

Los Angeles, as Freedberg reports, has 370 kids in the state system, nearly a third of the DJJ’s population. Just to give a sense of what Los Angeles’ juvenile facilities are like here’s a roundup of recent goings-on:

The problems in Los Angeles aren’t limited to staffing. The Corrections Standards Authority (CSA), which is the sole regulatory authority over county probation departments, only recently stopped threatening to declare LA County juvenile halls “unsuitable” because of chronic overcrowding. Chief Probation Officer Donald Blevins, who left Alameda County for LA last April with a mandate to clean things up, is credited with a hefty reduction in the number of kids in juvenile hall. But his mandate to overhaul the department is far from completed.

How difficult will it be to completely fix Los Angeles’ juvenile system? Take the example of food in the juvenile halls–something that’s pretty straightforward on its surface, but is proving quite complicated. A 2008-2009 inspection of three juvenile halls in Los Angeles County found serious nutritional issues. Among them, the food was repetitive (apparently, many, many meals involved ham), there was no nutritional information kept, and any kids requiring special diets (like, for diabetes) couldn’t get them, because there was simply no way to fill the order.

According to CSA Board member Carol Oughton Biondi, some kids were losing 40 pounds after a few months in juvenile hall. “Boys weren’t getting enough food, girls were getting potatoes, all carbs,” Biondi said at a recent CSA meeting. And three years later, after hiring a nutritionist, revamping the menu, and renegotiating the food provider’s contract, things haven’t changed much.

Chief Blevins told the CSA Board last week that the reason food in the juvenile halls still hasn’t changed is largely because the cost. Adding the fresh fruits and vegetables to the menu would cost the county an additional $860,000 a year. Tomorrow, the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors will vote on whether to approve the increase. But as Biondi told the CSA Board, the Board of Supervisors “has not been kind” to probation lately, and may not be willing to foot the bill for improved food, amidst a budget crisis.

What happens if they don’t pay for new food? It’s back to the CSA with bad news: that Los Angeles county can still not comply with state regulations–leaving the CSA with the option of giving the county more time, or declaring the system “unsuitable” for housing children.

“What I’ve seen, what we’ve all seen,” Biondi told her fellow CSA Board members. “Is counties that come before us don’t do anything until facing being declared unsuitable.”

It’s been hard getting counties to comply with regulations, even after they’ve been pressured by the CSA, said attorney Sumayyah Waheed, of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, a group that’s been advocating for a complete return of youth offenders to county facilities. As for facilities actually being declared unsuitable by the CSA, Weed said she’s “ever heard of them having done it.”

So that’s the choice that Brown and the legislature face when dealing with possibly switching up the juvenile justice system–sending kids back to the counties, which for many means going back to places like Los Angeles, or keeping things as is and risking regulatory stalemate.

At the moment, at least, shutting down the DJJ completely is off the table, as the resistance to the idea statewide was strong. Instead, CalWatch’s Freeberg reports, Brown is proposing a change that will keep the DJJ open, but may make counties reconsider using the state facilities. Each county would have to either send all or none of its most serious offenders (those who commit specific crimes like murder, arson, and robbery) to the state. The reformers Freeberg spoke with seem to be hoping that the final the plan will include some new provisions for overseeing conditions in the county system, but as of yet, are “in the dark” as to details.