Juvenile Halls in California

Over the years The Times has taken the lead in printing articles and editorials concerning conditions in our juvenile halls. In spite of this attention, circumstances in our juvenile detention facilities remain deplorable.

1--They continue to be dangerously overcrowded. Children of all ages sleep on the floor, as they have for years.

2--In spite of overcrowding, the number of line staff has been reduced.

3--Even though counseling is desperately needed, it has been eliminated as an official job duty for juvenile hall employees.

4--In response to budgetary demands, the probation officer classification, with its college-degree requirement, has been removed from juvenile hall. The new employee classification, with its lower pay scale, only requires 60 units of college work.

As a longtime line supervisor in two of our juvenile halls, I know much positive work does go on between staff and children, contrary to the impression created in recent articles by your reporter John Hurst. Nevertheless, any caring person must share his outrage at a system unable to protect those whom it was created to safeguard. Overcrowding, short staffing, the lowering of standards for employees, and the elimination of treatment as a job expectation, ironically, have been the official responses to years of media exposure, grand jury investigation, and public outcry.

In my opinion, the current state of juvenile detention in Los Angeles County constitutes governmental neglect that borders on the criminal. Youngsters are kept from successfully committing suicide only through hard work by caring line staff in spite of the system, not because of it.

CHARLES R. HAMSON

Los Angeles

Hamson is chairman of the Supervising Deputy Probation Officer’s Assn. Joint Council, Local 660 Service Employes International Union.