Conditions at Juvenile Hall Prompt Suit : Civil Rights: ACLU action against county says crowded facility doesn’t provide children with bare necessities of life.

Demanding an end to crowding at Juvenile Hall, the ACLU filed suit Friday against San Diego County, contending that the hall is so packed that it cannot provide even the bare necessities of life.

The lawsuit, filed late Friday in San Diego Superior Court, called conditions at the aging hall cruel. Because hundreds more children are housed there than state officials recommend, some juveniles sleep on the floor, and there isn’t enough food to go around, it said.

A recently approved plan to add 120 beds won’t ease conditions, the suit said. Even counting those beds, the facility will still be so crowded that it will violate the civil and constitutional rights of all the minors there, it said.

The suit, filed against the county Board of Supervisors, county probation officials and hall directors, asks for a court order directing an end to the crowding.

The ACLU has brought two different suits demanding an end to crowding for adults jammed into the county’s downtown and outlying jails. ACLU lawyer Betty Wheeler said that the suit filed Friday is related only in spirit.

“The issues are somewhat different because here we’re talking about children, talking about state standards for a homelike environment,” Wheeler said. “Those certainly don’t apply in the jails cases. Obviously, when talking about children, you are talking about people who are most vulnerable and most in need of constitutional protection.”

Wheeler’s reference to a homelike environment was to a state law that says a juvenile hall is supposed to be as much like a home as possible, said Alex Landon, another attorney instrumental in filing the suit. But conditions at San Diego County’s facility “are not homelike,” he said.

“I think the important thing is that we still have a system that says juveniles are supposed to be treated in a humane manner, since they are juveniles, and they should not be exposed to the type of conditions that will severely institutionalize them,” Landon said.

Juvenile Hall spokeswoman Arlene Smith acknowledged that crowding has been a chronic problem but denied the allegations that conditions are cruel and that staffing is inadequate. “There’s no doubt there is overcrowding, but the county has been working to reduce that,” Smith said. “And, of course, those (other) things are not accurate. We have nothing to hide.”

Smith said late Friday that Juvenile Hall officials were not aware the suit had been filed and would decline further comment until reviewing the suit.

Deputy County Counsel Nathan Northup, who had been involved in discussions with Landon and other lawyers working with the ACLU on the case, could not be reached Friday for comment.

Crowding at Juvenile Hall, a low-slung building off California 163 in Kearny Mesa, is not a new problem.

The hall, built in 1954, should hold no more than 219 children, according to a state agency. For years, it actually has held so many more children that dozens have sacked out each night on thin mattresses laid on the facility’s concrete floor.

In the 1970s, a county grand jury report called accommodations at the hall “totally unacceptable,” and the Board of Supervisors described crowding at the facility as a “crisis.”

Last year, the California Youth Authority, the agency that recommended a limit of 219 minors, considered imposing sanctions against the county because of repeated fights and assaults in the crammed quarters.

For the first four months of 1990, the population at the hall averaged 393 children, 174 over the suggested capacity, the lawsuit said. On June 21, there were 396 children at the hall, 177 over, the suit said.

Because the hall is too crowded, there is not enough hot water for showers, three children are often kept in a cell designed for one, and growing children do not get second helpings at meals, the suit said.

The facility is “chronically understaffed,” so there have been far too many fights, it said. Because of the understaffing, children with mental problems, who need a close watch, “are at risk,” it said.

In May, the county board approved a $16.9 million expansion of the facility designed to add 120 beds by June, 1992. But adding 120 beds two years from now, which would lift the recommended capacity to 339, still wouldn’t be enough to adequately house the numbers of children already being kept at the facility, the suit said.

The class-action suit, on behalf of all the minors at the hall, was brought in the names of a boy, Keith G., and a girl, Sarah A., who are being held there.

The suit says that the conditions violate the juveniles’ rights to due process, free association and various other federal and state constitutional and civil rights.

The San Diego Volunteer Lawyer Program and the law firm of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton are assisting the ACLU in the suit.