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L.A. County to hire monitors to
improve safety at juvenile camps
November 19, 2008
By Molly Hennessy-Fiske
The Justice Department has
threatened to sue the county over dangerous conditions. The
probation chief says he sees this as an opportunity to get the
facilities where they should be. Threatened by a federal lawsuit
over dangerous conditions at Los Angeles County's juvenile probation
camps, county supervisors said Tuesday that they will hire a team of
independent monitors to improve safety at the 19 facilities.
"The county finally conceded it
needed to address issues in the camps," Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky
said. "The Department of Justice forced probation's hand."
In a scathing issued late last
month, justice officials who inspected the camps last year found
poorly trained staff members who were routinely violating standards.
The county supervises about 2,000 juveniles at long-term probation
camps at any given time and a similar number in temporary detention
at probation halls.
The report, based on inspections,
records and interviews with juvenile offenders, found that
probation officers roughed up minors under their supervision,
instigated or allowed fights, denied medical treatment and drank
alcohol in staff quarters. Among the specific findings:
* More than 82% of staff at Camp
Kilpatrick had never been trained on how to safely restrain youths.
At some other camps, staff had not received use-of-force training in
a decade.
* Supervisors at Camp Scott, a camp
for girls, failed to report an inappropriate relationship between a
youth and a staff member to the Los Angeles County Department of
Children and Family Services, despite the fact that the same staff
member had been implicated in two prior abuse reports.
* Probation staff members at the
Challenger Camps and Camp Scott who were assigned to supervise
youths at risk for committing suicide arrived late and falsified
reports to cover up their absence.
Probation Chief Robert Taylor said
Tuesday that he does not see the report as "unfavorable."
"I look at it as an opportunity to
bring our facilities up to where they should be," he said. Youths
"are absolutely safe at these camps. I don't think their safety was
in jeopardy, in spite of that report. We had some employees who were
not treating them as they should have been, and they need to be
disciplined."
Taylor said his office has
substantiated allegations made in the report against nine staff
members, and they are still being investigated, though none have
been fired.
The criticism of the county's
probation camps marks the latest round of problems for a department
that has come under federal scrutiny in recent years for
mistreatment of youth offenders. The county has extended its
deadline for making improvements to its three probation halls by 27
months under a with the Justice Department. After failing to make
improvements within a year, the probation department now has until
December 2009.
County supervisors Tuesday said
they appointed the same independent monitor working with the halls,
former Los Angeles County Assistant Sheriff Michael Graham, to
manage improvements at the camps, as well as three other monitors
who have worked with the department. Graham will oversee additional
hires, who will be paid up to $200 an hour for a maximum of $1,600 a
day, to monitor conditions at the camps and ensure the county
complies with the 47 areas of improvement in the agreement.
Graham's appointment troubled some
children's advocates.
"The idea that someone who can't
get the halls to raise their levels of expertise would be
responsible for 19 more facilities seems ridiculous to me," said Kim
McGill, who works with probation youths and their families through
the nonprofit Youth Justice Coalition.
Yaroslavsky said the board is
attempting to build on work done at the halls but expects probation
to make changes sooner at the camps. "They're on a short leash from
the board and the Justice Department. They're going to be monitored,
and there are deadlines to be met," he said.
Taylor has four months to submit a
plan to improve the camps, then four years to make improvements,
according to the federal agreement, although he said he expects to
be able to make the necessary changes in two years.
There are currently 1,600 probation
staff members assigned to the camps, insufficient to meet the
state-recommended staff level of 1 to 15 youths.
Yaroslavsky said it will likely
cost tens of millions of dollars to add and train additional staff
at those levels.
Original article
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