LA County prepares to relocate youth from troubled Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall

After a judge approved a plan earlier this month to begin clearing out the troubled Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall, the Los Angeles County Probation Department says it has begun the process of transferring incarcerated young people between camps to prepare for the transition.

Probation’s depopulation plan, approved by L.A. County Superior Court Judge Miguel Espinoza on May 16, calls for moving youths to camps and other facilities spread across the county, including back into Camp Joseph Paige in La Verne and Camp Vernon Kilpatrick in Malibu.

The plan would move about 100 youths out of Los Padrinos in Downey, which currently has a population of about 270.

Last week, the Probation Department announced it was relocating youths and staff from Camp Paige to allow for “critical infrastructure improvements” there.

How we got here

The move by the Probation Department comes more than a month after the Board of State and Community Corrections affirmed its finding that the facility was “unsuitable” to house youth, and Espinoza subsequently ordered a plan to depopulate the facility.

The board found that L.A. County had failed to meet minimum staffing requirements at Los Padrinos, and that young people held there were being confined in their rooms for too long and missing medical appointments, among other concerns.

This latest shuffling of incarcerated youths comes less than two years after L.A. County was forced to move hundreds of incarcerated youths into Los Padrinos from two other facilities — Central Juvenile Hall and Barry J. Nidorf Hall — that the state board deemed unsuitable.

Oversight Commission recommendations

Earlier this month, the L.A. County Probation Oversight Commission sent the judge a list of additional recommendations for depopulating Los Padrinos, which included returning about 60 youths to court to reassess their cases.

The Oversight Commission’s idea was that dozens of youths could be returned to their homes without detention, with appropriate supervision and possible GPS monitoring.

Several criminal justice reform groups, including the Young Women’s Freedom Center and the Youth Justice Coalition, urged the court to reject Probation’s plan and instead implement the Oversight Commission’s alternative recommendations.

The Los Angeles Times reported that Espinoza declined to adopt those recommendations.

What’s next? 

The Probation Department said it plans to carry out its plan to move the youths out of Los Padrinos by the end of June. The Board of State and Community Corrections is expected to inspect the proposed facilities.