LA County Ordered To Move Children Out Of Two Juvenile Detention Facilities (And Other Headlines)

Drug overdose. Violence. Lack of healthcare and a quality, consistent education due to staff shortages.

These are just some of the ongoing issues that young people have faced inside Los Angeles County’s juvenile halls.

LA County given 60 days to move kids out of juvenile halls

California regulators voted yesterday for the county to quickly move nearly 300 children out of two troubled detention facilities — Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Sylmar and Central Juvenile Hall in Boyle Heights. In my colleague Robert Garrova’s latest story, he reported about why the California Board of State and Community Corrections moved to shut down these sites, citing noncompliance, failing conditions and staffing shortages.

The L.A. County Probation Department has 60 days to move kids to another facility: the Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey, which also closed down because of numerous issues.

Here's the background:

Just last year in April 2022, the probation department moved 135 kids from the Central Juvenile Hall to the Barry J. Nidorf facility so that state inspectors could evaluate conditions there. But then Nidorf became overcrowded, and there weren’t enough staff members to provide the education and health care for all children there.

There have been other issues as well.

In May, an 18-year-old male died of an apparent overdose inside Nidorf. And last year a probation watchdog group found these juvenile facilities were using pepper spray on kids even though they were ordered not to four years before.

The L.A. County Board Of Supervisors has taken a series of steps in recent years to overhaul the probation department and reduce its oversight of teens. The goal is to direct supervision to a new Department of Youth Development (DYD), but advocates say progress has been slow.

Read Robert’s story for more details on this unfolding story.

Stay safe out there, L.A. There’s more news below — just keep reading.

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Wait! One More Thing....

One Of The World's Architectural Post Office Beauties Is In LA

An exterior view of the U. S. Post Office at 1615 North Wilcox Avenue, in Hollywood. Building was built in 1937, and designed by architects Claude Beelman and Allison and Allison. Circa 1940.

(Tessa Digital Collections of Los Angeles Public Library )

There’s something nostalgic about taking a trip to the post office to send a postcard or a gift to someone you love. There’s a lot of history behind some of these buildings, too. This month Architectural Digest has a list of the 11 most beautiful POs around the world and the Hollywood post office, near Sunset Boulevard, made the cut.  

Back in 1937, the Works Progress Administration commissioned Art Deco architect Claud Beelman to design the renowned building. It is so iconic that the post office is on the National Register of Historic Places.

So the next time you have to mail a postcard or gift to a loved one, make sure you check out the post office in Hollywood. As Architectural Digest notes, it's been largely unchanged in almost 90 years!