It’s Criminal

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday passed a much-needed motion to move the county’s juvenile dependency courts out of the downtown Criminal Courts Building. The motion, introduced by Supervisor Pete Schabarum, proposed that the board agree in concept to build a 15-court central dependency facility, find space for a five-court satellite, study the locating of a dependency courtroom at MacLaren Children’s Center and investigate the financing for these projects.

Dependency courts work toward the permanent placement of children removed from their homes because of abuse and neglect. The county housed these courts in the Criminal Courts Building in 1978 as an interim measure after abandoning the old Metro-Annex Building on Sunset Boulevard and before constructing a new juvenile courts facility. But that money went for other things, and the dependency courts remain where they don’t belong: in the Criminal Courts Building. The overcrowding there is now desperate.

The number of dependency case filings has increased from about 3,500 in 1978 to an estimated 16,000 this year, and every case must be reviewed twice a year.

According to Dependency Court Supervising Judge Paul Boland, the severe lack of space in the Criminal Courts Building prevents the dependency system from functioning properly. Because there are only 15 dependency courtrooms in the Criminal Courts Building, children and relatives who come to sort out their lives often sit for hours on the floors of hallways. There is no private interviewing space for attorneys and social workers to talk with the families. Intimate conversations detailing horror stories of neglect, violence and sexual abuse take place in hallways within earshot of strangers. Social workers cannot put children and their families at ease in that atmosphere.

The Criminal Courts Building is an entirely inappropriate location for dependency courts. Dependency cases involve no criminal charges, and innocent children and parents often wonder what they’ve done wrong when they hear the building’s name. Children who come from MacLaren Hall and other detention facilities are scared even more, for they enter the building through the same garage as do prisoners from the county jail.

The Superior Court projects that the county will need 25 dependency courtrooms by 1990. Juvenile Court Presiding Judge Gabriel Gutierrez says that this estimate is low. Thus, while any number of courtrooms outside the Criminal Courts Building would be a welcome change, the board should figure more than 21 courtrooms into its planning. Wednesday’s motion promises nothing concrete, but it indicates a commitment by the Board of Supervisors to alleviate the crisis in the dependency system.