Inmate Youths to Get Mental Services

San Bernardino County juvenile offenders with learning, behavioral and emotional disabilities will now receive treatment in custody and after their release, according to a settlement approved Monday in federal court.

The class-action lawsuit, brought on behalf of six juveniles in county custody with mental health difficulties, alleged violations of state and federal disability rights laws.

The unique agreement will provide mental health screening for juveniles taken into custody and require officials to arrange for counseling, educational support, medication and other services from a team of doctors, nurses and county mental health specialists.

The settlement also requires monitoring and tracking of officers’ use of force against juveniles with special needs.

The arrangement “really transforms the probation-detention system from punitive to therapeutic,” said Paula Pearlman, deputy director of advocacy projects for the Disability Rights Legal Center in Los Angeles, which represented the juveniles. Although the county denied wrongdoing, the plaintiffs -- six minors with disabilities left mostly untreated by the county -- will also receive a combined $50,000 as part of the settlement, Pearlman said.

There are roughly 600 juveniles in San Bernardino County’s three detention facilities, in Rancho Cucamonga, San Bernardino and Apple Valley.

The approximately 900 department employees who work with them will receive additional mental health training to implement the settlement, said Jerry Harper, chief county probation officer.

Youths will also be offered continuing treatment to help them transition out of custody.

The new system will help minors from troubled homes who might have parents in jail or with drug problems, Harper said.

“You can have empathy for these young people and want to see them provided with services and maybe the care that they didn’t get when they were growing up,” Harper said.

Pearlman described several of the plaintiffs’ experiences in custody: “John Doe 3” was detained at age 12 with other juvenile offenders in spite of hallucinations, depression and symptoms of fetal alcohol syndrome, Pearlman said.

“John Doe 2” struggled with depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and would become belligerent and withdrawn without behavioral guidance, Pearlman said.

According to legal documents, he was exposed to pepper spray, verbally abused, denied requests for special education classes and suspended from school for complaining of physical ailments while in county custody.

The county probation department and Department of Behavioral Health will now collaborate to help juveniles struggling with mental problems and cut down on repeat offenses, Pearlman said.

A separate settlement with county schools on the same issue is pending, Pearlman said.

Estimates of how many juveniles in custody need such support range from 20% to more than 60%, but experts agree that the number is significant.