A Lesson for Juvenile Hall Action

For seven years Orange County officials ignored a federal judge’s order to ease overcrowding in the County Jail and provide each prisoner with a bunk instead of a mattress on the floor. The judge finally ran out of patience and held the sheriff and county Board of Supervisors in criminal contempt.

We hope the board learned its lesson and doesn’t repeat its foolhardy foot-dragging at Juvenile Hall, where some youngsters are having to bed down on mattresses on the floor because the detention facility has more youths than sleeping space for them.

Juvenile Hall has 334 beds; since mid-February it has had from 20 to 57 more inmates than beds. The trend is expected to continue.

The California Youth Authority has told the county Probation Department to “come up with a corrective action” plan for the future as well as to take care of the immediate problem. The county Board of Supervisors last Tuesday responded by asking the Orange County Juvenile Justice Commission to investigate housing conditions at the county’s juvenile detention facilities and report back by July 1 on long- and short-term solutions.

Some of the obvious solutions are the same ones that are now being applied at the County Jail--and should have been used all along, not just to ease overcrowding but because they make sense. The early release of some detainees who pose no risk to themselves or the community is being considered. They would live at home under close supervision by parole officers. Some of the youths being held for minor crimes should be kept in other juvenile facilities that could be expanded more quickly for less money because they would not require maximum security.

Supervisor Harriett Wieder, in requesting the Juvenile Justice Commission to investigate the problem, acknowledged that it would, indeed, “...be foolhardy for us not to act quickly.”

The county board must follow through and not let the problem get bogged down in countless studies that produce no action. Fortunately, the situation at Juvenile Hall is not as bad as it was at the County Jail. Delay and bureaucratic bungling mustn’t allow it to ever get that way.