This is the second in a four-part series looking into the juvenile justice system in Los Angeles, as told by people who work there. It’s a world where youth convicted of violent felonies are said to control the jails, while law enforcement are helpless to stop it due to defunding and downgrades to formerly strict laws.
It could only happen in Los Angeles: A big Hollywood producer helps redesign a county commission tasked with downsizing the number of incarcerated youths in the era of “defund the police.”
It was 2018, and Scott Budnick, producer of the Hangover movies, was part of a group of social activists who successfully fought for decarceration in California. The end result is community service instead of prison — despite statistics showing this approach isn’t keeping residents safe.
Between 2016 and 2021, murders increased 22%, with aggravated assault and rape up 18% and 6%, respectively. Despite this, the number of felony adult arrests was its lowest since 1979, while juvenile arrests have not been this low since before 1966, when record-keeping began, the California Department of Justice reported.
INSIDE LA’S OUT-OF-CONTROL JUVENILE JAILS WHERE VIOLENCE RULES
Still, the Los Angeles County Probation Commission was revamped and expanded with additional duties in 2018, increasing the number of commissioners from 10 to 15 members policing the Los Angeles County Probation Department. The agency is the largest probation department in the nation, with more than 6,500 employees and a $900 million budget.
Commissioners would address “a sharp public mistrust of the department [and] a failure in stewardship of public funds,” a report said.
The creation of the commission was driven in part by reports of sexual assault, 11 beatings, and a dozen instances of pepper spray misuse, the report said. It did not state that hundreds of officers are injured on the job, many with fractures and career-ending injuries, one officer said.
But if you ask officers working at the Probation Department, they will say the commission is yet another means to demoralize law enforcement with a layer of critique that automatically supports juvenile inmates in any dispute.
“This probation oversight [commission] is people who don’t like law enforcement,” one high-ranking official told the Washington Examiner. “The Board of Supervisors created it and has monthly meetings with ‘lived experience’ people and community advocates like the ACLU. They drive us in the direction they believe we should go.”
LOS ANGELES PROBATION FAILED TO OVERSEE GANG MEMBER PRIOR TO POLICE MURDERS
An officer criticized a June visit by Kim Kardashian, who was brought in by Budnick to speak with the most violent offenders in Juvenile Hall, including double murderers.
“This was all a setup for publicity,” the officer said. “Why isn’t she meeting with some of the lesser offenders who we hope to rehabilitate? Instead, it’s killers and rapists who torture people.”
On social media, Kardashian praised the probation staff that assisted with her visit.
“I want to thank Los Angeles County Probation and the superintendent for having me, and to the staff I met — who really believe in redemption and were constantly guiding these young men towards a positive path,” she said.
But away from the superficial glamour of a celebrity visit, critics say the board has created an unsafe system by refusing to staff the facilities at safe levels or allow any repercussions for the youth who create havoc and mayhem, officers said.
As for the adult and juvenile felons released into society who require monitoring by a judge, officers are told by their chief not to issue violations that would result in a return to jail. This backfired recently when a gang member who was under supervised probation murdered two police officers in an ambush shooting at a motel.
Two of the most pressing matters before the commission are the release of all girls from custody and increasing the quality of education for youth in jails. The number of girls in custody has been whittled down to just 35.
Supervisor Hilda Solis said female inmates usually find themselves in jail because they are victims of domestic abuse or trafficked.
“On a national scale, young women and girls are disproportionately affected by domestic violence. And as we see on the adult side of incarceration, the setting and environment of camps and halls are not conducive to healing and thriving,” Solis said.
However, a probation manager disagreed, calling the girls in custody hardened criminals who deserve to be where they are.
“We have girls who committed homicides and mass killings and mutilations,” the manager said. “One person took a victim into the Angeles National Forest and mutilated him. They’re not Betty Crocker. They’re not at home baking cookies. Just the mentality that a young girl cannot commit the same crime as a boy is ludicrous.”
The commission investigated the education system for incarcerated students and released a report on March 14, finding that students lacked a “culture of learning” and were “engaged in task avoidance” that included not cooperating with teachers.
An on-site analysis by three commissioners attributed the lack of a quality education to an incarceration setting and poor quality of classroom instruction.
“There is never any forgetting that these are locked facilities,” the report said. “While it is not within the ability of lay observers to describe the effect of this on the psychology of students, it seems obvious to commissioners that the stress of the environmental setting impacts the students’ ability to learn.”
Students were described as apathetic or antagonistic toward learning and were often given candy or credits toward graduation as rewards to perform basic functions. The report did not discuss the violent crimes committed by students but rather placed the blame for a poor education on teachers and probation officials.
“The Probation Department’s tendency to treat the youth themselves as a constant source of danger leads to the prioritizing of control of student’s movements above all else. The result is carceral environments that make learning more difficult, and for many of the youth, it makes learning impossible,” the report said.
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But if you ask the probation officials, they say only the most hardcore criminals are still locked up in Juvenile Hall, and these are not the people who should be allowed to create disturbances. Even in adult prisons, inmates receive college diplomas and learn trades when they abide by the rules.
“We don’t have lower-level detainees,” the manager said. “I wish we did. Those are the ones you could help and deter from a life of crime.”
