Report Faults Treatment of Juvenile Offenders

A grand jury report released Wednesday says youngsters charged as adults had been locked up in the Central Men’s Jail in Santa Ana without receiving state-mandated schooling or supervision from adequately trained staff.

The report raises concerns about rehabilitating juveniles in facilities designed for adults, and comes as county prosecutors charge more and more juveniles as adults.

Orange County officials learned of the grand jury’s findings earlier this month, before the report was made public, and have since moved more than a dozen youngsters from the county jail to Juvenile Hall in Orange and the Santa Ana City Jail, authorities said Wednesday.

The central jail was built to house men but for years has held as many as 17 juveniles charged as adults. The county heeded the grand jury report’s recommendation to close its juvenile facility on the jail’s second floor earlier this month.

The report notes that sheriff’s deputies working in the facility are not trained to watch over juveniles. Sheriff’s officials said they had long felt ill-equipped to house juvenile inmates but were unable to transfer them until Theo Lacy Branch jail recently opened a facility capable of housing juveniles.

The panel also cited problems keeping juvenile and adult inmates separated and found that, until recently, county health inspectors had not examined the juvenile facility.