LA County supervisors want Los Padrinos declared an emergency to avoid ‘extreme peril’

A new motion from two Los Angeles County supervisors would declare the potential emptying of Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall a “local emergency” and grant the county access to powers typically reserved for natural disasters to avoid putting communities in “extreme peril.”

The declaration, if approved at the Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday, Dec. 17, would allow the deployment of “disaster service workers” and law enforcement to the understaffed juvenile hall, expedite hiring and firing of probation officers and enable the county to request mutual aid from the California Office of Emergency Services.

Related: LA County judge weighing shutdown of Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall

If Los Padrinos is closed, there is nowhere for the 260 youth in custody to go “except back into the community,” according to the motion by Supervisors Kathryn Barger and Hilda Solis. Critics have urged the county to release youth with less serious offenses to community detention or to send them to other counties, if possible. However, the supervisors argue that isn’t an option.

“Probation has asked if any other Probation Department across the state can house the LPJH youth, and they all indicated an inability to help,” the motion states. “This unfortunately creates extreme and imminent risks to the safety and security of the youth themselves, and of the community more broadly.”

Violent detainees

The motion states a “very high percentage of the youth in LPJH have a history of serious, violent offenses — such as murder, attempted murder, sexual assault, kidnapping, robbery and carjacking — and/or are facing such charges now.”

“The county wants these youth to succeed; they cannot be cast out of LPJH onto the streets of Los Angeles County and no other suitable facilities exist,” Barger and Solis wrote.

The motion directs county counsel to pursue “all legal strategies” to prevent youth from being released into the public.

Los Padrinos is facing closure after state inspectors from the Board of State and Community Corrections found the facility is out of compliance with the state’s minimum standards for staffing and for programming. Nearly a quarter of the shifts at the juvenile hall did not meeting minimum ratios of staff-to-youth during a most recent inspection. The short staffing has led to youth missing school, canceled medical appointments, delays in access to legal services and a prevalence of violence.

The Probation Department reported 800 uses of force in the first half of 2024, an average of more than four incidents per day. That figure doesn’t include any violence, such as a fight between youth, that ends before officers have to intervene physically or with pepper spray. Concerns about safety, possible reprimand for intervention and excessively long shifts have created a domino effect in which more and more officers call out, or take leaves, to avoid the risks.

As all public employees in California are considered “disaster service workers,” the emergency declaration would allow for the deployment of any county employee with the appropriate skills and training into the juvenile hall.

Missing workers face discipline

The Department of Human Resources would also have the authority to “quickly reduce vacancy levels” within the department through means such as lateral hiring and the “use of any qualified peace officer in the State of California, including reserve peace officers and 120-day retirees.”

The declaration also grants Human Resources the power to “expeditiously process all pending return-to-work matters for existing LPJH employees” and to take administrative actions, including discipline, against those employees if necessary.

The facility was legally required to close Thursday, Dec. 12, but Los Angeles County defied state law and the BSCC by remaining open. In the motion, the supervisors joined the Probation Department in blaming the BSCC — an agency criticized for its leniency toward Los Angeles County in the past — for the potential closure and alleged the inspector’s findings of noncompliance are “wrong” and “lack due process.”

The county has told the BSCC it intends to file an appeal within the next month.

“Probation’s Notice of Appeal reflects its contention that Probation, in fact, did have adequate staffing during the period inspected, and that the BSCC’s calculations to the contrary were simply inaccurate,” the motion states. It also alleges the “BSCC misapplied the governing regulations’ inspection criteria to create confusing, unfair, and illegal standards that are essentially impossible to meet, and that the BSCC’s process in reaching its purported findings violated its own statutes and regulations, including by improperly changing the cadence of the inspections.”

Struggles since reopening

Los Padrinos has struggled with stability since it opened in July 2023. The facility experienced two violent escape attempts within its first few months and a third recently. Eight officers were placed on leave in early 2024 for allegedly running a fight club inside the juvenile hall.

Los Padrinos was declared unsuitable by the BSCC in February due to the same staffing issues, but it narrowly avoided closure that April through an unpopular mandate that involuntarily redeployed hundreds of field officers. Due to the BSCC’s frustrations with L.A. County’s repeated appearances, the board requested more frequent inspections to ensure the improvements continued.

Within two months, Los Padrinos was out of compliance again. Most recently, the facility failed an inspection in August due to the staffing crisis. The BSCC subsequently rejected the county’s “corrective action plan” as insufficient in October, kicking off a final 60-day countdown, during which L.A. County needed to either fix the staffing issues, or close the facility.

Inspectors noted progress during its Dec. 5-6 reinspections, but concluded that the staffing had not improved enough to find the facility back in compliance.

The BSCC is set to meet Wednesday, Dec. 18, to consider its legal options for forcing L.A. County to comply. At the same time, attorneys for advocacy groups are preparing lawsuits challenging Los Padrinos’ continued operation and defense attorneys for the youth in custody have filed motions asking for new placement for their clients.

Judge Miguel Espinoza has ordered probation to appear Dec. 23 to address why he should not force Los Padrinos to send youth elsewhere and bar the facility’s use until it comes back into compliance.