Staffing Issues at Juvenile Facilities

* Re your Feb. 18 editorial on the atrocious state of L.A. County’s juvenile justice facilities: For many years there has been a tragic lack of staff training, support in the facilities has been limited and staffing has been dangerously low. Every attempt to work with the county to increase staff professionalism has been ignored. Our attempts to get the county to agree to provide the necessary support and to staff the juvenile halls and camps at appropriate levels were also rebuffed.

In 1998, we filed a lawsuit against the county to deal with the dilapidated human infrastructure. This lawsuit eventually led to a consent decree forcing the county to comply with minimum Board of Corrections regulations. However, these minimum regulations do not in any way provide for adequate levels of staffing and the professionalism of staff necessary to rehabilitate juvenile offenders.

The cycle goes like this: L.A.’s kids get in trouble; L.A.’s kids get thrown into the “Victorian slum”; L.A.’s kids serve their terms with little or no rehabilitation, education or mental health assistance; and then L.A.’s kids get sent home. The courts have sent a few wake-up calls. The first was the consent decree. The second has come from Juvenile Court Presiding Judge Terry Friedman and Mental Health Court Supervising Judge Harold Shabo. On behalf of the thousands of public servants working in L.A. County’s juvenile facilities who are committed to rehabilitating troubled kids, it’s time for a third wake-up call. The physical and the human infrastructure must be improved simultaneously.

RALPH MILLER, President

Deputy Probation Officers’ Union

Local 685, AFSCME, AFL-CIO

Los Angeles