By Jason Henry
Los Angeles Daily News
LOS ANGELES — A state regulator has once again ordered Los Angeles County to shut down its largest juvenile hall, Los Padrinos, within 60 days over the unsafe conditions caused by short staffing.
The Board of State and Community Corrections issued a “notice of facility unsuitability” to the county Probation Department on Monday, Oct. 14 . The notice, addressed to Probation Chief Guillermo Viera Rosa, states the county failed to develop a sufficient plan to address long-standing staffing shortages and, as a result, the Downey facility must be emptied by Dec. 12.
“Lack of staffing has been central to the repeat cycles of noncompliance and suitability for the Department for nearly five years,” wrote Steven Wicklander, acting deputy director for the BSCC’s Facilities Standards & Operations Division, in an email to Viera Rosa.
The BSCC rejected the plan submitted by the county last week because it “did not adequately outline how the Department plans to correct the issue of noncompliance, nor did it provide reasonable timeframes for resolution of the staffing deficiencies.”
The agency has not demonstrated “there are an adequate number of personnel sufficient to carry out the overall facility operation and its programming, to provide for safety and security of youth and staff, and meet established standards and regulations,” according to the notice.
Under state law, a facility is required to have an “approved” corrective action plan on file within two months of failing an inspection, or it is automatically declared “unsuitable” for the confinement of youth.
It’s unclear what Los Angeles County will do next. The Probation Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Viera Rosa also has been scheduled to provide a “global plan” for the future of L.A. County’s juvenile halls to the Board of Supervisors for months, but it has been continuously pushed back.
Supervisor Lindsay Horvath expressed her disappointment in a statement.
“The Probation Department is failing our young people,” Horvath stated. “We need staff to show up, and a global plan to become compliant, and, more importantly, provide the care and rehabilitation our young people deserve. Without a plan to put into action, nothing will change.”
Supervisor Janice Hahn reiterated her commitment to do “everything in my power to help our Probation Department get this facility back on track.”
“These young people are not only in our custody, they’re in our care,” she stated. “And it’s clear once again that Los Padrinos is not providing them the care and opportunity they need.”
There is a chance the county could stop the process, as it has done in the past, if it can prove it has addressed the staffing shortages by passing another inspection before the December deadline. However, whether that inspection will happen quickly enough is up in the air. The last time Los Angeles County appeared before the BSCC in April, for the exact same reason, board members warned they would not be lenient if Los Padrinos failed again and suggested they would push for closure in the event of a repeat offense.
Though it would be unprecedented, the board could choose not to reinspect and instead let the clock run out.
“It is clear they cannot trust L.A. County anymore,” said Aditi Sherikar, a senior policy associate with the Children’s Defense Fund California.
Sherikar and other advocates have urged Los Angeles County to focus on reducing its juvenile population through decarceration, rather than solely attempting to increase its staffing numbers. Efforts to recruit new probation officers and to incentive employees to show up for work have been largely ineffective, and that’s not likely to change in two months, she said.
Last year, the Board of Supervisors pledged to put the “full force” of the county behind Los Padrinos. Now, that same energy is needed to reduce the number of youth in custody, Sherikar said.
“Their options are limited,” she said. “They could refuse to decarcerate, in which case they would have to shut down the hall because we know their staffing measures don’t work.”
Los Angeles County’s rejected Corrective Action Plan does include a short-term strategy to reduce the juvenile hall’s population by making more referrals to community detention programs, refusing to accept “cite-and-release offenses,” increasing use of a “structured release program,” and assigning a deputy district attorney to Los Padrinos to review cases more quickly. The CAP states those actions began Oct. 1 , but it does not include an estimated time for implementation, as required by the BSCC.
Viera Rosa , in a response to Wicklander on Sunday, Oct. 13 , stated that the problems at Los Padrinos are not unique, as “all correctional facilities are currently facing similar staffing shortages, which necessitate reliance on overtime and staff deployments.”
“According to data from the Peace Officers Research Association, law enforcement staffing levels are at a 30-year low. This, combined with recruitment difficulties, compels Los Angeles County to implement both short-term and long-term strategies to enhance staffing levels,” Viera Rosa wrote. “Additionally, the County is aware that a significant number of staff members are not reporting to work, exacerbating the situation.”
The plan included changes to scheduling, more proactive supervision, an increased use of non-sworn employees and incentives for lateral transfers from other agencies.
L.A. County Probation attempted to submit a revised plan two days after the rejection Friday, Oct. 11, but it was not accepted because the statutory deadline had passed, according to Wicklander’s email.
“However, even if I were to consider this plan on its merits, I would not approve it,” he wrote in his email to Viera Rosa. The revised plan “focuses on prioritizing absenteeism and well-being of your employees, and only addresses services to youth by recognizing ‘the need for better reallocation of recreation space throughout the facility,’ ” he wrote.
The plan “fails to outline the targeted number for reduction of population and how the reduced population affects the issue of noncompliance with staffing and the adequate delivery of required programs and services to youth.”
If L.A. County cannot stabilize its staffing or the population at Los Padrinos in time, the youth in custody there would need to be transferred to other facilities, likely in neighboring counties, creating a hindrance for their families and friends. The county does not have any backup locations large enough to house the roughly 300 youth at Los Padrinos.
The BSCC has only ever closed two juvenile facilities through the suitability process, both in Los Angeles County. In 2023, the board previously found Central Juvenile Hall and Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall “unsuitable” and the county chose to reopen Los Padrinos, which had closed in 2019 after a long history of oversight and safety problems, to consolidate its staff and all predisposition youth — juveniles who have not had their day in court — at a single location.
The same problems that resulted in the closures of the other two facilities almost immediately reappeared at Los Padrinos.
The BSCC similarly ordered Los Padrinos to close in February 2024 because the facility did not have enough staff showing up for work to provide the safety and services required by state law, but L.A. County, through the mandatory reassignment of hundreds of field officers, managed to bring the numbers up enough to stop the process before an April deadline. Los Padrinos seemed to stabilize during that first reassignment, however, once the reassigned officers finished their 60-day rotation, the problems began again.
The turnaround was short-lived. By June, half of the 541 employees at Los Padrinos were on leave and dozens were still calling out every day, according to figures provided to the Los Angeles County Probation Oversight Commission. The constant call-outs have been attributed to safety concerns and are compounded by worries that the employees will be held over for additional shifts when others don’t show up.
In July, nearly 20% of shifts at Los Padrinos failed to meet staffing minimums. That understaffing led to youth arriving late to school, missing out on recreational activities and being stuck in their rooms for unallowable amounts of time. Teachers working for a community-based organization notified the county in a letter in early October that they would not return to Los Padrinos because they feared for their safety.
“On our first class day, our teachers witnessed a probation officer get violently attacked by a young person who was not part of our class, and, disturbingly, they observed that other probation officers present not only did not intervene, but verbally chided the officer being attacked rather than assisting,” the letter states.
“We would like to emphasize that we do not feel this is a safe environment for any CBO, or the youth at Los Padrinos. Long periods of time without any staff present, locked in, with no contact to any outside staff or help, would be extremely dangerous in any environment, let alone one where violent incidents have been reported nearly every week.”
The BSCC, which has been inspecting Los Padrinos on a nearly monthly basis since April, began a “comprehensive inspection” of the facility on the same day it declared Los Padrinos “unsuitable.” Unlike the previous “targeted inspections” over the last few months, the latest review will look at every part of the facility regulated by state law. Such inspections have historically led to the discovery of a laundry list of additional problems.
The BSCC is scheduled to meet next on Nov. 21.
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