State regulators will decide Feb. 15 whether to shut down the newly reopened Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall, potentially leaving Los Angeles County with hundreds of detained juveniles and no suitable facility large enough to hold them.
The looming deadline comes after Los Padrinos in Downey and the Barry J. Nidorf Secure Youth Treatment Facility in Sylmar failed key inspections in January. State inspectors determined the Los Angeles County Probation Department remains out of compliance with California regulations and has not properly addressed substandard conditions at the juvenile facilities, contrary to the claims of probation officials.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn, whose district includes Los Padrinos in Downey, expressed her disappointment that the Board of State and Community Corrections is considering shutting down two more of the county’s juvenile facilities.
“We have long known what the BSCC’s expectations were and it is troubling that the department made so little progress and fell so short in meeting them,” she said in a statement. “It is clear that our Probation Department has enormous challenges, from staffing to programming, but it is imperative that we bring these two facilities into compliance because the future of the youth in our care is in jeopardy.”
Hahn pledged to “put every available County resource” behind the necessary improvements.
Not enough time, probation chief says
In a statement, probation chief Guillermo Viera Rosa blamed the department’s failure to fix the juvenile facilities on the severe deadlines imposed by the state. The county had to scramble over a two-month period to transfer nearly 300 youth to Los Padrinos last year when the BSCC forced the closure of Central and Barry J. Nidorf juvenile halls over similar conditions.
“BSCC chose to set the timeline despite our request for 150 days to properly transition the youth from Central and Barry J. Nidorf to Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall and…
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