Juvenile Hall Held Captive by Crowding

No nighttime reading is allowed for youths forced to sleep in makeshift dormitories at the San Fernando Valley Juvenile Hall because guards fear that something as innocuous as a book or magazine could conceal a weapon.

With the hall’s population 45% over capacity, even the most minor fight has the potential for escalating out of control. There are rules for everything, most aimed at keeping minors who are incarcerated for offenses ranging from drug possession to murder under the tight discipline of guards.

Underwear is the only possession allowed at night for those who bed down in the day rooms that serve as dormitories. At night, and at times during the day, youths are not allowed to utter a word. Because only five at a time can be in the bathrooms, where silence is also enforced, it can take more than an hour for all youths to complete their pre-breakfast routines.

“We are not able to provide the kind of secure but relaxed atmosphere that would probably be beneficial to the children,” said Trula Worthy-Clayton, the Sylmar facility’s superintendent. “Even teen-agers want a little peace and quiet.”

Last week, under orders from the California Youth Authority to alleviate the crowding, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to apply for $18 million in state bond funding to expand the Sylmar hall by 160 beds by 1993 and to plan for the replacement and expansion of the aging Central Juvenile Hall in Lincoln Heights.

The one-story Sylmar hall, encircled by a red brick wall, was built in 1978. It has enough private rooms for 393 youths, but hundreds of others must sleep in open day rooms, which are also used for eating and watching television.

For troubled youths, living so close together means violence is a blink away, detention officers said. During a visit last week, a reporter and photographer saw an altercation--quickly squelched--flare up when one boy bumped into another.

“This constant face-to-face contact is not ideal, especially in view of the gang situation on the outside and the fact that many times these kids despise each other,” said Donald McGruder, probation director at the hall.

Officers keep watch for any signs of gang identification, such as complicated knots in inmates’ shoelaces, and they frequently frisk their charges for pencils, rocks or pieces of metal that could be used as weapons. Infractions of rules can lead in some cases to confinement in an isolation room or longer sentences.

Juvenile halls are way stations for youths awaiting court hearings, placement in one of the county’s 15 juvenile detention camps or in one of the California Youth Authority’s more prison-like facilities. Most of the hall residents range in age from 10 to 17, but some are younger; about 1 in 10 are girls.

Similar crowding at county and state facilities has caused a backlog in the system, increasing the average stay at Sylmar from 21 days in 1986 to about 28 today, administrators said. Several youths last week said they had been in Sylmar for seven months.

The youths say their large numbers create such problems as not being allowed to take afternoon naps because their beds are locked away and having their telephone conversations cut short.

“When there’s more people, we get less privileges, that’s all,” said Manuel, 16, who had arrived at the hall the night before on the latest of several stays there.

Nonetheless, a few said they actually prefer being with others in the dormitory to the isolation of the private rooms.

“It doesn’t seem like you’re in a jail if you sleep in the day room,” said Cornelius, 16. “If you sleep in one of them rooms, all alone, it’s jail.”

The 6 a.m. wake-up call in one of the hall’s units touched off frenetic activity. The 19 youths sleeping in their own rooms were marched--five at a time, hands behind their backs, eyes straight ahead--into the bathroom. Meanwhile, the 12 who slept on the day room floor stripped their beds, folded their mattresses and stored them in closets--all the while wearing only their underpants.

Their clothes are taken away at night to prevent their use in escapes or suicide attempts or, in the case of shoes, as weapons. Those assigned to bedrooms keep their clothes outside their doors and are allowed to dress in privacy.

The 31 boys who assembled in the quickly transformed day room to wolf down a hearty breakfast of pancakes, ham, oatmeal and grapefruit were silent as they ate, under orders from the officers.

The youths march to school daily at a campus run by the Los Angeles County Office of Education on the hall property. Several times a week there are more students than can be taught in classrooms and the excess students are sent to exercise in the gym or sometimes to their units without receiving any instruction, said Principal Solomon Henderson.

The facility has grown steadily since being rebuilt after it was destroyed in the 1971 Sylmar earthquake. Similar growth has occurred at the 117 county and state youth facilities around California, especially those located in or near larger cities.

About 17,600 youths were incarcerated statewide last year, compared with about 14,000 in 1984, an increase of 26%, according to youth authority statistics.

State youth authority officials have allowed violations of their own rules against letting youths sleep on mattresses on the floor because of the lack of space.

Last May, all three county juvenile halls, including Los Padrinos in Downey, were cited by the state for failing to meet even the more lenient emergency standards and given two months to correct violations ranging from fire hazards and overly thin mattresses to insufficient indoor living space, according to state inspection reports.

Los Padrinos was the last to meet the requirements, a week after the June deadline had passed and after the state had ordered it closed, said Rito Rosa, regional administrator for the youth authority.