Violence Undermines County Juvenile Hall

When Los Angeles County officials opened the doors to their rebuilt juvenile hall in the San Fernando Valley three decades ago, the facility was supposed to provide a modern, safe place to house young offenders.

But by the time four teenagers jumped a wall there last week, Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall had become a grim illustration of the chaos and violence that has engulfed the county’s troubled juvenile detention system.

Teachers and Probation Department staffers at the 672-bed Sylmar facility, as well as county reports, detail an institution where fights between black and Latino youths routinely escalate into racial melees.

The young inmates are kept in their cells for hours and off the recreation fields because of security concerns and a lack of adequate staffing. Suicide attempts are not uncommon, according to county records and staff members’ accounts.

Inexperienced guards, many of whom have never dealt with teenage offenders, struggle to keep order even as they are called on to work double shifts. And teachers, some of whom have been assaulted, say they can’t conduct classes because there aren’t enough guards to keep order.

“If I was a parent and had my child in one of these institutions, I would be scared,” said Charles Coleman, who has been teaching at Nidorf more than 11 years.

County leaders say they are working to fix the problems, which some say stem from years of inadequate funding. In January, the Board of Supervisors appropriated $6.5 million to boost staffing at Nidorf and the county’s two other juvenile halls.

Three supervisors -- Zev Yaroslavsky, Mike Antonovich and Yvonne Brathwaite Burke -- indicated they would ask for a report on security in light of the recent escapes.

Yet Antonovich, Yaroslavsky and Burke, along with Supervisors Don Knabe and Gloria Molina, have all served on the board at least nine years and, as overseers of the county’s juvenile system, have been responsible for Nidorf as conditions there deteriorated.

During that time, reports from county grand juries, federal monitors and the Probation Department have repeatedly identified problems at Nidorf and the county’s other juvenile facilities.

With some 4,000 charges, the Los Angeles County juvenile detention system is now larger than the state-run system for youth offenders.

Squeezed onto 33 acres where the 5 and 210 freeways meet in the north Valley, Nidorf was not explicitly designed to rehabilitate youths held there for months on end.

The county operates mountain camps where teenagers serving their sentences are supposed to participate in more rehabilitative programs. (Those convicted of the most serious crimes are sentenced to state youth facilities or to adult prisons.)

Nidorf -- like the other juvenile halls in Downey and on Los Angeles’ Eastside -- typically holds youths while they wait for court dates or transportation to another facility.

Behind the high walls and concertina wire that surround the facility, most youths -- girls and boys -- are housed in cells in a group of barracks-like buildings built in the late ‘70s.

County officials have also made Nidorf the central holding facility for some of the county’s most dangerous juvenile offenders: teenagers who are being tried as adults because of the seriousness of their crimes.

These inmates, along with those on their way to the state juvenile system -- the current total is about 260 -- are housed in more modern buildings enclosed in an extra perimeter of fencing.

Most are gang members, according to the Probation Department and staff.

Many have been accused of the most serious of crimes, including murder, robbery and sexual assault.

All young inmates are supposed to get regular schooling. Those with psychological problems are supposed to get medical attention. And Probation Department guards are supposed to protect the youths.

It hasn’t been working out that way.

On the afternoon of Oct. 1, 2005, 28 teenage inmates rioted after a fight broke out between rival gang members in one of the buildings that houses juveniles being tried as adults. Two youths had to be taken to the hospital, according to a Probation Department report.

Ten days later, there was another racially motivated melee involving 13 black and Latino youths who rioted during lunch, throwing chairs and punching one another. The department reported that one youth and one staff member were taken to the hospital.

In early November 2005, there was another riot involving 21 youths. Two days later, 15 fought one another. There were no serious injuries in those fights, the Probation Department said.

At all three juvenile halls, fights involving youths jumped 29% between 2004 and 2005, according to department statistics.

Ron Barrett, who oversees the juvenile halls for the Probation Department, attributed much of the increase to a lack of staff and the increasingly violent nature of the juvenile inmates.

The unrest has taken a toll on probation staffers, who filed more than 50 grievances over working conditions at Nidorf last year, according to the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Local 685, which represents the staff.

Equally disturbing, veteran staff members say, is the county’s trend toward handing responsibility for watching youths to inexperienced officers who are unprepared to control teenagers and thus quicker to use force themselves.

“They need to train people properly before they put them in that kind of situation,” said Sue Cline, a veteran probation officer who now works for the union. “It puts everyone in harm’s way: kids, staff and the community.”

The environment at Nidorf has made teaching next to impossible, several teachers said.

Coleman, who teaches in a housing unit for juveniles being tried as adults, said teachers had to teach two classes in the same room because there were not enough guards.

“You don’t feel like you’re really teaching,” Coleman said, noting that he has had to resort to having students do silent reading in place of regular lessons.

One teacher recently took more than a week off work after he was struck in the head by an inmate. Another left just days after she was transferred to Nidorf because the environment was so stressful, according to the head of the union that represents teachers at the facility.

Stephen Colet, who also teaches the serious offenders at Nidorf, has gathered signatures from 18 colleagues for a six-page complaint he is sending the U.S. Justice Department, which began investigating conditions at Nidorf and the other juvenile halls 5 1/2 years ago.

Colet and others point out that the biggest losers are the incarcerated teenagers, almost all of whom have serious problems that demand time and attention.

Justice Department monitors have repeatedly cited the county for failing to provide adequate care for mentally ill and suicidal youths at Nidorf and the other juvenile halls. The most recent citation came in an October report in which monitors described youths trying to kill themselves while they were left unattended.

Mark Lewis, who has been teaching in the juvenile system for three decades and now heads the union representing county teachers, said he has never seen conditions like they are today.

“When safety and security are compromised, it’s dangerous for everyone,” Lewis said. “But particularly for the kids. They are really the ones who are suffering.”