Boyle Heights community leader Azael Martinez, who also volunteers as a probation department monitor, was pegged to investigate and report on the county’s juvenile facilities and discovered that the 22-acre compound, commonly referred to as Eastlake, has walls that are covered in scum and graffiti, kids are forced to use staff bathrooms because theirs don’t have running water and they are also drenched in urine that splashes on them because the facility’s urinals are broken or covered in waste. Martinez also found that staff routinely put kids in isolation for reasons that don’t fall under the department’s guidelines, such as sharing food. In his report, Martinez called the conditions “deplorable” and described the culture of apathy among staff. In general, employees at the facility feel victimized and don’t take responsibility for the “unacceptable” environment.
Martinez wrote inhis report:
It appears that no one cares. Staff does not know who is in charge and are quick to push the blame elsewhere.
Officials have already launched their own investigations of the facility. But the city has long known about the decrepit conditions at Eastlake, which is more than 100 years old. In 2014, a grand jury reported that the detention center is literally falling apart, with broken pipes and rotting facades:
Bath towels and duct tape were used in a futile attempt to repair broken pipes and prevent seepage. There was an indistinct foul odor in the hallway suggesting that sewage or stagnant water was present.
They found a “dilapidated” modular building used to house foster youth facing criminal charges was “totally isolated from the main facility and surrounded by barbed wire fencing which gives the appearance of an adult prison, not a youth facility.”
Supervisors have expressed an interest in rebuilding the facility altogether, but also point to the high cost of doing so. Two years ago, the county funneled billions of dollars into men’s and women’s jails, and allotted $48 million to rebuild another juvenile facility. Only $5 million was given to Eastlake for repairs.
Several high-level county officials echoed the grand jury’s concerns. Trying to repair and modernize the existing buildings “is like putting a jet engine on a Model T,” Probation Department chief Jerry Powers said.
“It’s been a horrible facility for a long time,” said Supervisor Gloria Molina, whose district includes the hall. “We’ve tried to clean it up and rehab it and everything, but it needs to be rebuilt.” Advocacy groups, including the Youth Justice Coalition, say the aging central hall is no longer needed and should be torn down and not replaced. At this point, however, no detailed study of the facility or its future has been conducted. It’s unclear whether county officials will back what Powers estimated would be a $50-million replacement price tag for the hall, when so many other costly projects are underway.
Supervisor Don Knabe said:
It costs $230,600 a year to incarcerate one kid. If I had my choice and had all the money I needed, I would support blowing the whole thing up and starting over again. But funding a new central juvenile facility could be difficult.
Edilberto Flores, 18, spent a month in the hall awaiting trial when he was 16. Most of the time, the hot water in the showers didn’t work and his cell was so cold during the winter that he had a hard time sleeping, he recalled. Flores said there was mold on the floor in his cell that he suspected was the result of past inmates relieving themselves in the corner when they couldn’t get staff’s attention for a trip to the restroom. A 17-year-old girl who stayed briefly at Central Juvenile Hall in 2010 while being transferred between other facilities, said she couldn’t take a shower because the water was brown.
Officials note the number of detainees in the county’s three juvenile halls has declined sharply over the last several years, a result of falling crime rates and alternative programs for youths accused of lower-level crimes. The population of the three juvenile halls is down from a high of more than 1,700 in 2006 to about 800 as of last week. Central Juvenile Hall, which can house about 600 inmates, is less than half full. Powers acknowledged that minors detained at the central hall could be shifted elsewhere in the system. But that would create other problems related to transporting juveniles to the central court for proceedings in their cases.
Whether officials ultimately close it down or rebuild it, decisions about the future of Central Juvenile Hall will probably be influenced by recent shifts in thinking about treatment of young offenders, with more emphasis on rehabilitation than punishment and containment of problem minors. Federal authorities are monitoring the treatment of young inmates in probation camps and halls. And the Malibu juvenile camp is being redesigned to support treating and counseling small groups of inmates, a model that advocates say is more humane and more likely to reduce recidivism. Molina said that if Central Juvenile Hall is rebuilt, the facility’s focus should be more “in line with the sort of rehabilitative aspect of what we’re supposed to be doing.”
In addition to being placed in wretched conditions, there is little evidence to suggest that youth detention in L.A. County is serving its primary purpose. Juvenile justice is supposed to be rehabilitative in nature, but a Cal State L.A. study concluded that one-third of juvenile offenders are re-arrested within a year of their release from detention. The vast majority of offenders have a mental illness and half have histories of substance abuse. Youth who spent time in the system reported that rehabilitation programs are few and far between and participating in them is a privilege that can be revoked. Some facilities have no programs at all, and many lack trusted adults to mentor and counsel kids in the system. L.A. County currently has the largest juvenile justice system in the country.
