After years of scandals, CA attorney general asks court to put LA County's juvenile halls under state control

California Attorney General Rob Bonta is asking a judge to put Los Angeles County juvenile halls under state control.

The move comes after a litany of scandals at county facilities, including overdoses and accusations of gladiator fights.

"Let me be clear, this is the last resort," Bonta said. " But it's also the one path left to protect the safety, dignity, and basic rights of the young people in these facilities."

Bonta repeatedly laid blame on the county for failing to address the crises at its youth facilities. In 2021, the attorney general issued a judgement demanding the county come into compliance after a state investigation found that there were "unsafe and illegal" conditions at county juvenile halls.

Bonta said Wednesday that the county was out of compliance with 75% of the provisions in that agreement.

" We gave the county numerous opportunities to fix this on its own," Bonta said.

He's asking the Los Angeles County Superior Court to place the facilities into a receivership. The court-appointed receiver would be able to hire and fire county employees, create policies at the facilities and acquire equipment to bring the county into compliance, according to the court filing.

That attorney general is requesting that Michael Dempsey, the current monitor overseeing the 2021 state judgement, be made the receiver. Dempsey has previously served as a superintendent at juvenile facilities in Indiana and Kansas. 

Bonta said a hearing could take place as soon as next month.

For years, young people incarcerated in L.A. County have been shuffled between facilities that have been deemed unsuitable by the state.

Most recently, a judge ordered Los Padrinos Juvenile Facility in Downey to relocate dozens of youths in May, citing staffing shortages and young people missing needed medical appointments. Youths were moved into Los Padrinos just two years earlier when two other facilities in Lincoln Heights and Sylmar were deemed "unsuitable."

Thirty probation officers were accused earlier this year of allowing "gladiator fights" at Los Padrinos in 2023. Last month, L.A. County agreed to pay $2.7 million to a teenager who was beaten by other youths in 2023. The incident was caught on security cameras.

The Los Angeles County Probation Department responded to the news calling Bonta's filing misleading. In a statement, county spokesperson Vicky Waters said the department was concerned that the request seeks "expansive authority through an expedited court process."

She went on to cite actions by Chief Probation Officer Guillermo Viera Rosa "to address several of the deficiencies that have plagued the Probation department for decades," saying he had stabilized staffing and increased staff accountability.

Viera Rosa started the job in October of 2023, the same year that the California attorney general’s office accused officers of allowing and sometimes encouraging 69 fights to take place at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall. The attorney general filed charges against those officers earlier this year.

Supervisor Janice Hahn, whose district includes Los Padrinos, supported the move.

"We have spent years trying to improve conditions, exhausted every tool at the County level, and still, we are failing these young people," she said.

Los Angeles County Public Defender Ricardo Garcia said in a statement that state intervention should prioritize youth services outside of incarceration.

"State action should prioritize lasting transformation of how the criminal legal system treats its most vulnerable youth," he said. and continue to move away from punishment toward healing, education, and care, not cages."

The attorney general is also asking a judge to establish a compensation fund for young people harmed while in county custody.