3 Years Late, Crews Put Finishing Touches on Juvenile Hall Expansion

After years of delays, construction crews at Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall packed up on Friday, finally preparing to leave the expanded detention center they have made the largest in the nation.

The $26.2-million project also makes Nidorf the most high-tech, according to planners, featuring not only bulletproof glass, video cameras and a metal detector, but also sensor razor wire that sets off alarms if anyone tries to hop fences, and personal security devices worn like beepers that alert guards if an officer is overcome by detainees.

Probation officials say the two new 80-bed buildings--finished three years behind schedule--will ease overcrowding in a chronically overburdened system. But they by no means will end the crunch.

Nidorf has been housing an average of 700 kids in dormitories built to sleep 450, but it’s no more crowded than the county’s other two juvenile halls. Together the three facilities hold about 2,000 youths in buildings designed for 1,287, mainly by putting a second mattress on the floor in rooms meant for one.

Crowding is so bad that youths are shuttled among the three facilities, and rooms within each building, on a daily basis to balance the bulging, officials said.

While double-bunking in single rooms will continue to be a fact of detention hall life--even with the Nidorf expansion--officials said the new wing should give all three county facilities a little breathing room.

When they’ll be able to take that first breath is unclear, however.

Officials have yet to set a move-in date, waiting for “punch list” repairs and touch-ups that could take weeks, said Trula Worthy-Clayton, detention bureau chief for the county Probation Department.

“My projection would be after the first of the year,” she said, adding that it depends on how fast the contractors move.

“I don’t know what’s holding it up, but it’s not the punch list,” countered Michael Hughes, project manager for the contractor, Swinerton & Walberg. “Ninety-nine percent of the items on the punch list are signed off on and the things that are left are very minor.”

One thing that may be holding up the new building’s occupancy is staffing. Ed Anhalt, who oversees the Nidorf compound, said one condition of the expansion was that the new structures could not increase Nidorf’s operational costs.

Clearly, disagreement over why the project took so long to complete is far from over.

The expansion, which was initially expected to be done by December 1994, was delayed more than a half-dozen times.

Both the county and the construction company agree that the Northridge earthquake is to blame for some of the setbacks. But what caused the rest is in dispute.

Swinerton & Walberg say delays were due mainly to incorrect site surveys provided by the county. Site elevations were wrong, which led to work stoppages while builders figured how to solve a myriad of problems that it produced, said Hughes, the project manager.

County officials have acknowledged that they rushed the planning process, contributing to significant problems. But they say the contractor is also to blame. They declined to discuss details.

The county began to penalize the company in June, claiming the job should have been finished by then. About $600,000 in fees have been withheld in the last six months, according to officials in the Department of Public Works, which has been overseeing the job for the county.

Swinerton & Walberg said it would appeal the fines.

The Nidorf expansion is the first time beds have been added to the county’s juvenile detention halls since the late 1980s, when some dormitory-style trailers were installed, said Worthy-Clayton.

The system lost some 120 beds in buildings damaged by the Northridge quake, most of them in Central Juvenile Hall in Los Angeles. Probation officials said they have yet to get a clear answer as to whether those structures, which remain red-tagged, will be rebuilt.

Until they are, the net effect of the new wing at Nidorf will be minimal--adding only 40 beds to the system as a whole.

Officials are planning to move juveniles certified to stand trial as adults, which now number about 150, into the new buildings.

They are not necessarily the most violent of the detainees--a group that has become increasingly more so over the years, in part due to overcrowding, probation officials said.

Limited bed space has led the Probation Department to use adult-style conditional release programs, such as electronic monitoring and house arrest, for small-time juvenile offenders.

Officials vow that they won’t release minors who ought to be detained and place less-dangerous offenders in alternate programs. That means detention halls are left with very bad kids: those who are accused of violent crimes, have a history of arrests, or have violated the conditions of their release.

“These kids aren’t here for singing too loud in the boys’ choir,” said Anhalt, the superintendent. “This is what the juvenile side of the county jail would look like.”

Even before all the fancy electronic security measures were installed throughout the old and new wings of Nidorf this year, officials followed tight security procedures.

Group showers and toilets are enclosed in glass so officers can watch detainees from their post.

Youths sleep on twin mattresses in otherwise stark 86-square-foot rooms. They have to leave their shoes outside the door.

It’s harder to get away from guards if you’re trying to run away in your socks, officials explain.

But at first glance, Nidorf looks more like a mini college campus than a jail. Shade trees line the front of the one- and two-story brick buildings. Behind them are green fields and a mountain view.

It would be a lovely school setting, if it weren’t enclosed in razor-wire-topped fences.