Should L.A.’s probation agency be split between youths and adults?

Amid turmoil at the Los Angeles County probation department, some elected officials and juvenile justice reform advocates are pushing a proposal that would split the sprawling agency in two parts, one for overseeing minors in trouble with the law and one for adults.

The idea has been floated for years by advocates who say the nation’s largest probation system is too unwieldy to address the different needs of the adult and juvenile populations. Opponents say breaking up the department, which has an annual budget of more than $800 million, would be too disruptive and costly, and the proposal has never gained a serious foothold with the Board of Supervisors.

But with the impending departure of the agency’s third chief in five years, advocates are once again pushing for restructuring.

County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, who is part of a new, more liberal board majority ushered in by the 2014 elections, said he plans to ask for a formal study of the feasibility of separating the adult and juvenile probation operations.

“It’s my thinking that the time has come,” Ridley-Thomas said in an interview. “I do believe very strongly that the probation department is in need of substantial reform.”

Probation Chief Jerry Powers has announced that he will step down Jan. 4, amid reports that he improperly hired a woman with whom he had a romantic relationship into a high-level position in the department. That leaves the agency in flux.

The probation department tracks about 43,000 adult offenders and is responsible for 9,000 juveniles, both in and out of custody. It runs three juvenile halls, primarily for youths awaiting trial, and 14 camps for those ordered to longer stays in a locked setting; it also contracts with group homes and substance abuse treatment facilities to house other youngsters.

Although adults make up most of the population supervised by the department, three times as many staff members are assigned to dealing with minors as to the adult probationers, and the juvenile system has been in many ways the most problematic. The department emerged in the spring from six years of federal monitoring of conditions in the juvenile lock-ups, prompted by repeated reports of abuse and poor conditions.

Powers was hired in 2011 to carry out the required reforms and move the department in a new direction, with less focus on punishment and more on rehabilitation for young people. The flagship project has been the reconstruction of Camp Kilpatrick, an aging juvenile lock-up in the hills near Malibu. The new facility, set to reopen next year, will replace barracks-like dormitories with cottages intended to create a more home-like setting for small groups of teens who will go through classes, counseling and other daily activities together.

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Advocates for a less-punitive approach support the project and acknowledge progress in lowering the population of juveniles in lock-up, but they say the pace of reform has been too slow.

Kim McGill, an organizer with Youth Justice Coalition, an advocacy group for youths who have been in the criminal justice system, said her group is “100% in favor” of having a separate juvenile agency. She wants it housed in an office of youth development that would also run a network of youth community centers, job training and recreational programs.

In the current department, she said many probation workers come from a criminal justice background and take a more punitive approach to kids. “Punishment doesn’t really work for anyone, but especially for young people,” she said.

The proposal has drawn some initial skepticism within the department.

Ralph Miller, president of the probation officers’ union — which was at odds with Powers — said he thought such a split was unnecessary and would only result in “competing budgets and just fracturing things.”

“It would be too disruptive,” he said. “We’ve been through enough stuff.... You properly train and equip and support people and the rest will kind of work out by itself.”

Margarita Perez, assistant probation chief who will initially take over as interim chief upon Powers’ departure, pointed out that of California’s 58 counties, only San Francisco has separate adult and juvenile probation departments.

“If that was, in fact, more efficient, it makes me wonder why, out of 58 counties, there’s only one county that’s been split into two,” she said.

San Francisco’s chief of juvenile probation, Allen Nance, said the state’s complex requirements make it difficult for a single agency to both handle young people and keep up with changes in the adult criminal justice system. For juvenile offenders, there are educational requirements, standards for camps and halls and steps to place young people in group or foster homes if they can’t return to their families.

“I can’t imagine how, in a medium to large county, a single chief probation officer can keep track of it all,” Nance said.

In some other parts of the country, including in Washington, D.C.; Cook County, Ill.; and throughout the state of Texas, juvenile offenders are supervised by a separate agency. On the other hand, some agencies have recently merged adult and juvenile operations to save money on administration.

“There’s no one model that’s better than another model, but it is important to make sure we don’t treat juveniles and adults in the same way,” Susan Burke, president of the American Probation and Parole Assn. and director of Utah’s Juvenile Justice Services department, said. “We don’t want to just be a training ground for the adult system.”

The discussion around structuring the department could also have implications for the selection of a long-term chief.

Perez is expected to take the reins in the short term, with Cal Remington, a retired probation official who served a previous stint as interim chief in 2011, returning as interim chief while the search for a new chief is in progress. The supervisors have not yet formally approved a contract with Remington, who said in an interview that he was not interested in the permanent job.

Supervisor Sheila Kuehl said the board will undertake a national search for a “star” who will expand efforts like the Camp Kilpatrick remake.

“We are poised in L.A. to really lead in a new day for probation,” she said.

abby.sewell@latimes.com

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