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State regulators clear LA County juvenile facilities to keep operating
VOL.28,
NO. 167
UCLA: ‘Despair’-related deaths of Blacks, Native Americans overtake whites
By City News Service
By City News Service
Photo by DiamondRehab Thailand on Unsplash
M Photo by DiamondRehab Thailand on Unsplash
L
os Angeles County’s juveniledetention system avoided a major setback Thursday when state regulators reversed an earlier finding and found that two county facilities are again suitable to house youth offenders. The decision by the California Board of State and Community Corrections averted a potentially disastrous closure of the facilities — Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey and the Barry J. Nidorf Secure Youth Treatment Facility in Sylmar. The board ruled in February that the two facilities were “unsuitable” to house youth detainees. The BSCC’s decision found the Nidorf SYTF out of compliance with state regulations pertaining to staffing levels, training, use of force training, disciplinary procedures and youth access to programs and recreation. Los Padrinos was found to have significantly more issues, with noncompliance
found in staffing levels, fire safety plans, safety checks, room confinement procedures, use of force training, searches, education programs, youth access to programs and recreation and disciplinary procedures. After two months of scrambling to make operational changes, including a reassignment of many probation officers out of field duty and into detention roles, both facilities passed recent state inspections, leading to Thursday’s decision. Had the board not reversed the earlier “unsuitable” finding, both facilities would have been forced to close by early next week. The county had no contingency plans in place for housing the youth if the ruling had stood. “Under the Board of Supervisors’ direction, the Probation Department has made great strides addressing deficiencies at facilities by increasing and stabilizing staff levels, providing hundreds of hours of addi-
tional training, and working closely with BSCC staff to tighten procedures and protocols,” county Probation Department Chief Guillermo Viera Rosa said in a statement. “While today’s BSCC decision marks a milestone in that effort, we note the ongoing concerns and acknowledge there’s still much more to be done. “The county remains fully committed to transforming its juvenile justice facilities into the safest, most nurturing environments possible for the youth committed to our care.” Los Padrinos houses predisposition youth detainees awaiting resolution of their court cases, while the Nidorf SYTF facility holds postdisposition youth offenders who have already been convicted. The county hastily reopened Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall last year and transferred all pre-dispoSee Juvenile facilities Page 28
sition youth to the facility, moving them away from Nidorf Hall in Sylmar and Central Juvenile Hall in Lincoln Heights, which were both declared unsuitable and ordered to close by the BSCC. At that time, the BSCC did not have jurisdiction over the Nidorf Secure Youth Treatment Facility for post-disposition youth, but it was granted that authority by the state later in the year. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger hailed Thursday’s decision, but noted that more needs to be done to improve the juvenile facilities. “Today’s suitability finding is a testament to the hard work that our county’s Probation Department, under new leadership, has put in to improve the care youth are receiving at two challenging sites,” Barger said in a statement. “The work is far from
ortality rates of middle-aged Blacks caused by so-called “deaths of despair” -- suicide, drug overdose and alcoholic liver disease -- surpassed the rate of whites in 2022, but Native Americans had more than double the rate of both Black and white deaths from the same causes, according to a UCLA Health survey released Wednesday. The results of the research, published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, are the latest from UCLA Health to counter a nearly decade-old narrative that deaths of despair have primarily impacted whites in America, according to researchers. Study coauthor Dr. Joseph Friedman of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA said the current results highlight the sharply rising rates of premature mortality related to mental health issues and substance use disorders with large racial and ethnic inequalities. “The findings reinforce the notion that we need to invest in services that can address these issues and, ultimately, we need much more comprehensive access to low-barrier mental health care and substance use treatment in the U.S.,” Friedman said in a statement. “And we need to specifically make sure those treatments, services and programs are implemented in a way that is accessible for communities of color and will actively work to address inequality.” The deaths of despair theory rose to prominence following a 2015 study that analyzed rising mid-life mortality, and decreasing life expectancy, in the United States from 1999 to 2013. The study became a focus of controversy after it found whites had the highest mortality rates from these causes at 72.15 per 100,000 people in 2013, which was two times that of Blacks. According to UCLA Health, the findings sparked a narrative that the rising death rates were primarily impacting less educated whites who were experiencing a perceived loss of economic and social status. However, data for Native Americans were not included in the 2015 study or in the many follow-up analyses it triggered. A 2023 study by UCLA Health determined that Native Americans have had a considerably higher midlife death
See Deaths of despair Page 27