Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall will remain open until at least early January after a judge held off on ordering the troubled hall shut down.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Miguel Espinoza required the Probation Department to appear in court Monday to argue why the Downey hall should remain open despite a shutdown order from the state.
Closing Los Padrinos would require the roughly 250 young people inside the hall to be moved elsewhere, potentially lower-security camps, home confinement or facilities in neighboring counties.
The California Board of State and Community Corrections, a state oversight board, ordered the hall shut down by Dec. 12 because of repeated issues with inadequate staffing. The county flouted the order, leaving the youth inside and appealing in court.
“There is no question that dramatic changes must be made to Los Padrinos,” Espinoza told L.A. County officials at the Monday hearing.
After a briefing from the Probation Department, Espinoza continued the hearing to Jan. 10, noting that the situation was “in flux.”
“The Probation Department is working arduously to collaborate with the court, state officials, community partners, and other stakeholders to resolve this issue in a manner that is both effective and sustainable,” the agency said in a statement Monday. “Our shared goal is to ensure a rehabilitative environment for justice-involved youth in our care while balancing public safety and meeting the highest standards of care.”
The county Board of Supervisors recently declared a “local emergency” over the crisis in the hall. The emergency order gives new powers to the chief, allowing him to temporarily redirect some of the county’s workforce into the halls.
“It is the staffing that has been the most difficult compliance item, in part because it requires a much longer-term plan to be able to correct,” Probation Chief Guillermo Viera Rosa told the judge Monday.
Espinoza questioned whether the chief could bring the facility into compliance with state standards.
“If I didn’t believe we could do this, I wouldn’t be here before you,” Viera Rosa responded.
Attorneys for the Probation Department argued in legal filings that the state’s inspectors were “demonstrably incorrect” in their finding that the juvenile hall was dangerously short-staffed. Inspectors had relied on staffing ratios that assumed the hall was at its full capacity of 309 youth rather than the real population of about 250, the county said.
Attorneys for the county said there is nowhere else for the youth to go if the judge orders Los Padrinos to be emptied. The state shut down the county’s other two halls last year after similar issues with staffing and neighboring counties “uniformly declined” to house any of the youth currently at Los Padrinos, according to legal filings.
“We’re not asking the court to give up. We’re not saying there’s nothing that can be done,” Andy Baum, an attorney for the county, told a judge. “We are saying there are no other juvenile halls for these kids to be housed.”
Frank Santoro of the L.A. County district attorney’s office, argued that releasing the youth would be dangerous.
According to a filing from the district attorney’s office, as of Dec. 9, 78% of the 259 youth at Los Padrinos had been charged with or found to have commited a “serious or violent crime.” Eighty-three youths had been accused of or found to have committed murder or attempted murder.
“There couldn’t be a more preventable, obvious, foreseeable harm than letting these people out on the streets,” Santoro said. “And moving them is not a good idea for many reasons.”
Michael Theberge of the county public defender’s office argued that the district attorney’s office was “fearmongering about how dangerous these individuals are.” The office, which represents 106 of the youth at Los Padrinos, argued the county was violating state law by operating the hall after being found unsuitable by the state and all youth needed to be either transferred to other facilities or released.
“They’re arguing that it’s in the youths’ best interest to remain at Los Padrinos. That’s not true,” Theberge said. “Everybody knows it’s not a healthy place.”