California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said Wednesday he will ask a judge to allow the state to take control of L.A. County’s juvenile halls.
The move comes after years of failure to comply with court-ordered reforms that have been marked by riots, drug overdoses, allegations of child abuse and the death of a teenager.
In a statement, Bonta said he will ask a judge to place the county’s halls in “receivership,” meaning a court-appointed official would take over “management and operations of the juvenile halls” from the L.A. County Probation Department, including setting budgets and hiring and firing staff.
Bonta is expected to discuss the move at a news conference in downtown L.A. around 9:45 a.m. A probation department spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The scandal-plagued halls have failed to see significant improvement under the probation department’s management. Two facilities were shut down in 2023 after repeatedly failing to meet basic standards to house youth under California law. That same year, 18-year-old Bryan Diaz died of a drug overdose at the Secure Youth Treatment Facility, and reports of Xanax and opiate overdoses among youths in the halls have become a regular occurrence in recent months.
Nearly three dozen probation officers have been charged with crimes related to on-duty conduct in the past few years, including 30 indicted earlier this year by Bonta for staging or allowing so-called “gladiator fights” between juveniles in custody. Officers also routinely refuse to come to work, leaving each hall critically short-staffed.
“This drastic step to divest Los Angeles County of control over its juvenile halls is a last resort — and the only option left to ensure the safety and well-being of the youth currently in its care,” Bonta’s statement Wednesday said. “For four-and-a-half years, we’ve moved aggressively to bring the County into compliance with our judgment — and we’ve been met with glacial progress that has too often looked like one step forward and two steps back. Enough is enough. These young people deserve better, and my office will not stop until they get it.”
Bonta first suggested he might seek receivership in May, in response to questions for a Times investigation on the probation department’s years of defiance of state oversight.
The California attorney general’s office began investigating L.A. County’s juvenile halls in 2018 and found probation officers were using pepper spray excessively, failing to provide proper programming, and detaining youths in solitary confinement in their rooms for far too long. A 2021 court settlement between L.A. County and the state attorney general’s office was aimed at improving conditions for youth and tamping down on use of force.
But the situation has seemingly only gotten worse in the last four years. Incidents in which staff use force against youths have increased over the life of the settlement, records show. The L.A. County inspector general’s office has published six reports showing the department has failed to meet the terms of the state oversight agreement. Oversight officials have caught several probation officers lying about violent incidents in the halls after reviewing video footage that contradicted written reports.
After the state shut down the county’s other two major detention centers, Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey was reopened but quickly became a haven for chaos. In its first month of operation, there was a riot and an escape attempt and someone brought a gun inside the youth hall.
Late last year, California’s Board of State and Community Corrections ordered Los Padrinos closed too after it failed repeated inspections, but Probation Chief Guillermo Viera Rosa ignored the order, leading some to call on Bonta to intervene. Eventually, an L.A. County judge ordered the probation department to begin emptying Los Padrinos until it came back into compliance with state standards.
