drug overdose

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said Wednesday he will ask a judge to allow the state to take control of L.A. County’s juvenile halls.

The move comes after years of failure to comply with court-ordered reforms that have been marked by riots, drug overdoses, allegations of child abuse and the death of a teenager.

In a statement, Bonta said he will ask a judge to place the county’s halls in “receivership,” meaning a court-appointed official would take over “management and operations of the juvenile halls” from the L.A. County Probation Department, including setting budgets and hiring and firing staff.

Bonta is expected to discuss the move at a news conference in downtown L.A. around 9:45 a.m. A probation department spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The scandal-plagued halls have failed to see significant improvement under the probation department’s management. Two facilities were shut down in 2023 after repeatedly failing to meet basic standards to house youth under California law. That same year, 18-year-old Bryan Diaz died of a drug overdose at the Secure Youth Treatment Facility and reports of Xanax and opiate overdoses among youths in the halls have become a regular occurrence in recent months.

Nearly three dozen probation officers have been charged with crimes related to on-duty conduct in the past few years, including 30 indicted earlier this year by Bonta for staging or allowing so-called “gladiator fights” between juveniles in custody. Officers also routinely refuse to come to work, leaving each hall critically short-staffed.

“This drastic step to divest Los Angeles County of control over its juvenile halls is a last resort — and the only option left to ensure the safety and well-being of the youth currently in its care,” Bonta’s statement Wednesday said. “For four-and-a-half years, we’ve moved aggressively to bring the County into compliance with our judgment — and we’ve been met with glacial progress that has too often looked like one step forward and two steps back. Enough is enough. These young people deserve better, and my office will not stop until they get it.”

Bonta first suggested he might seek receivership in May, in response to questions for a Times investigation on the probation department’s years of defiance of state oversight.

The California attorney general’s office began investigating L.A. County’s juvenile halls in 2018 and found probation officers were using pepper spray excessively, failing to provide proper programming, and detaining youths in solitary confinement in their rooms for far too long. A 2021 court settlement between L.A. County and the state attorney general’s office was aimed at improving conditions for youth and tamping down on use of force.

But the situation has seemingly only gotten worse in the last four years. Incidents in which staff use force against youths have increased over the life of the settlement, records show. The L.A. County inspector general’s office has published six reports showing the department has failed to meet the terms of the state oversight agreement. Oversight officials have caught several probation officers lying about violent incidents in the halls after reviewing video footage that contradicted written reports.

After the state shut down the county’s other two major detention centers, Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey was reopened but quickly became a haven for chaos. In its first month of operation, there was a riot and an escape attempt and someone brought a gun inside the youth hall.

Late last year, California’s Board of State and Community Corrections ordered Los Padrinos closed too after it failed repeated inspections, but Probation Chief Guillermo Viera Rosa ignored the order, leading some to call on Bonta to intervene. Eventually, an L.A. County judge ordered the probation department to begin emptying Los Padrinos until it came back into compliance with state standards.

A judge approved a plan Friday to move more than 100 youths out of a troubled Los Angeles juvenile hall that has been the site of riots, drug overdoses and so-called “gladiator fights” in recent years.

Los Angeles County Superior Judge Miguel Espinoza signed off on the L.A. County Probation Department’s plan to relocate dozens of detainees from Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey, months after a state oversight body ordered the hall to be shut down.

The Downey facility, home to approximately 270 youths, most of whom are between the ages of 15 and 18, has been under fire since last December, when the Board of State and Community Corrections ordered it closed because of repeated failures to meet minimum staffing requirements. The probation department has faced a years-long struggle to get officers to show up to work in the chaotic halls.

But the probation department ignored the state board’s order to shut down. Since the body has no power to enforce its own orders and the California Attorney General’s Office declined to step in, Los Padrinos continued to operate in defiance for months. In that time frame, several youths suffered drug overdoses, a teen was stabbed in the eye and 30 probation officers were indicted for allegedly organizing or allowing brawls between youths.

Acting on a legal challenge brought by the L.A. County Public Defender’s Office, Espinoza last month ordered probation officials to begin shrinking the number of youths held at Los Padrinos so it could comply with state regulations.

Roughly three-quarters of the youths at Los Padrinos are awaiting court hearings connected to violent offenses including murder, attempted murder, assault, robbery, kidnapping and gang crimes, according to the probation department.

The probation department made its plan to de-populate Los Padrinos public earlier this month, promising to remove 103 detainees from the facility by June.

Under the department’s plan, youth who are awaiting trial on cases that could land them in the county’s Secure Youth Treatment Facility will be moved to Barry J. Nidorf Hall in Sylmar. Others will be moved out of Los Padrinos and into the lower-security camps, where some juvenile justice advocates say teens perform much better and are far less likely to act violent.

“This plan reflects our continued commitment to balancing public safety, legal compliance, and the rehabilitative needs of the young people in our care,” the department said in a statement. “It is key to note that the court denied an indiscriminate mass release of youth, and that Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall will not be fully depopulated or closed.”

Espinoza originally weighed shutting down the facility last year when the public defender’s office questioned the legality of its continued operation in defiance of the BSCC. On Friday, he declined to adopt a plan from the Probation Oversight Commission that could have resulted in the release of some youths through a review process.

Some members of the oversight body expressed frustration that Espinoza’s order won’t solve the larger issues that have plagued the probation department for years. Milinda Kakani, a POC board member and the director of youth justice for the Children’s Defense Fund, also noted the moves might cause some youths to backslide by returning them to Nidorf Hall after they had already graduated from the prison-like SYTF, which some derisively refer to as “The Compound.”

“I imagine it’s deeply damaging to a young person to go back to the facility they had worked so hard to get out of,” Kakani said.

Espinoza warned he could take further action if the department’s plan does not bring it into compliance with state regulations. It was not clear when the next BSCC inspection of Los Padrinos would take place and a spokeswoman for the oversight body did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The probation department must provide Espinoza with an update on conditions at Los Padrinos by July.