Corrections Must Be Made
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Rodney Haynes Jr. never stood a chance. At 4 feet 10 inches tall and just 85 pounds, the slight 12-year-old was allegedly beaten to death by two much older, much bigger teens with whom he lived briefly at a Calabasas group home for troubled youths. Days after Haynes’ body was found in a garbage bin, Los Angeles County probation officials last week vowed to investigate the placement of every youngster under 15 in a group home.
That’s a good start.
Acting Chief Probation Officer Walter J. Kelly told the Board of Supervisors that he would return as early as this week with recommended revisions to the process through which youths are placed in private care facilities, which are used by the county to relieve overcrowding at its own facilities. Kelly also plans changes to how those homes are monitored. Already, Kelly has rescinded a plan to double the number of cases assigned to placement officers--giving them more time to investigate the background of a home before assigning a youngster.
Among the preliminary recommendations that deserve further scrutiny: Separating children by age so smaller, younger kids are not placed in homes with older, potentially more violent teenagers, such as the one accused of killing his girlfriend on a weekend pass from a residential facility in Van Nuys. Regardless of age, juvenile delinquents put in homes for committing crimes should not be mixed with youngsters assigned to protect them from abuse or neglect. Finally, the most violent youngsters ought to be placed under close supervision in secure facilities.
As county officials work to correct the bureaucratic oversights that may have placed Haynes in danger and allowed the other boy out unsupervised, neighbors of group homes countywide are understandably upset and nervous. Fear, however, must not be allowed to run these homes out.These are kids whose lives have gotten knocked off course somewhere. Shooing them out of a neighborhood only reinforces the message that they’re dangerous and worthless. The county must send a contrary message by working fast to make homes safer--both for their wards and for their neighbors.
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