Juvenile Halls Overhaul Sought

Carrying a message his bosses may not be eager to hear, Los Angeles County’s new probation chief has begun a politically delicate campaign for hundreds of millions of dollars to resuscitate the county’s troubled juvenile detention system.

Robert Taylor, who took over the Probation Department last month, has told the five-member Board of Supervisors he needs more than $115 million to boost security at the violence-plagued juvenile halls and camps.

An additional $22.6 million is needed to redesign the network of 19 rural camps that many critics say have lost their focus on rehabilitating young offenders.

And he is contemplating seeking tens of millions more to build a fourth juvenile hall to ease overcrowding in a system now home to nearly 4,000 young offenders.

“Things have gone to seed for 10 years or more,” Taylor said this week after sending supervisors a $163.9-million request, which would boost the Probation Department budget by nearly 10% a year over the next three years.

Taylor has provided virtually no details of his plan, much to the chagrin of county leaders. But its scope -- which suggests the elected supervisors have not done enough in the past -- also risks fueling a cool reception.

The supervisors are already under pressure to find more money to improve conditions inside overcrowded adult jails and prop up other county services.

And even though they praised Taylor’s ability to rescue the reeling juvenile system upon appointing him in April, it seems unlikely they will write him a big check any time soon, aides and observers say.

“I’ve seen them all,” said Ralph Miller, the veteran probation officers union leader who has worked with eight chiefs in the last 30 years. “They come in as flavor of the month. And they have about six months before the Board of Supervisors slits their bellies and floats them down the Los Angeles River.”

At least one supervisor has already voiced skepticism, calling on Taylor to spend more time thinking about ways to boost educational and mental health services for youths, as well as heightening security.

“The department has had five to seven years of neglect,” said Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who joined the board in 1994. “There needs to be a more thoughtful, comprehensive approach to what is needed over the next three to five years.”

All five supervisors have been in office for at least nine years.

Taylor’s budget request comes amid mounting tensions in Los Angeles County’s juvenile system, which is now larger than the California state system and smaller than only the state systems in Florida and Texas.

Federal monitors appointed two years ago to look over the juvenile halls continue to find evidence that young offenders are being mistreated. Violence among inmates and staff remains a near-daily occurrence. There have been race riots, at least one rape and a rash of escapes.

And county officials anticipate even more federal scrutiny in the future.

Since taking over the department, Taylor has proclaimed his desire to radically reform an organization that in government circles has become a poster child for a directionless, unaccountable bureaucracy.

A powerfully built former Los Angeles police commander, he has already suspended one senior probation official implicated in mistreatment of mentally ill inmates and appointed new superintendents at the three juvenile halls. And he said he plans more house-cleaning in the approximately 5,200-employee department.

He has also talked about improving record-keeping in a department that hasn’t been able to track basic information about its young inmates, including their education levels, mental health needs and even their criminal histories.

“I’m not going to piecemeal this,” Taylor said in a recent interview. “I will change the culture of this organization.”

But while cultural changes may be key to long-term reform, staffing and facilities -- both of which have been called inadequate by independent inspectors -- promise to most seriously inflate the bill for any overhaul.

In response to criticism from federal monitors, county supervisors in January appropriated $6.5 million to hire 247 new guards and mental health staff at the three juvenile halls.

Taylor now is talking about hiring about 1,300 additional people to improve services at the 19 camps and elsewhere.

More than $115 million of his current request is devoted to improving lighting, cameras and other security measures at county facilities, including putting toilets in cells so inmates don’t have to be let out to use communal bathrooms.

Taylor also said the county needs a new juvenile hall and extensive renovations to the camps, many of which haven’t been substantially upgraded in decades.

“I don’t think the public has an appreciation for how backward these facilities are,” he said. “I’m not saying we need to build more jails for kids. But if you’re going to provide kids with programs, you have to have the capacity.”

Taylor said he is interested in tagging onto a county bond measure that Yaroslavsky has talked about putting before voters to modernize the adult jails.

The push for more resources has found a receptive audience in Supervisor Mike Antonovich, a Republican representing the northern portion of the county who for years has argued for more spending on criminal justice and less on other county functions such as healthcare.

“The majority of the board has downplayed public safety for years

But several supervisors have shown less enthusiasm for much new funding.

When four inmates escaped from a juvenile hall in March, Yaroslavsky, a West Los Angeles Democrat, took pains to declare at a board meeting that probation “has been one of the best-funded departments” in the county.

And though the county’s finances are in better shape than they were a decade ago, supervisors are still under pressure to provide more money to the county’s gargantuan public health system, its mental health system and its overcrowded adult jails.