U.S. Senators Alex Padilla and Laphonza Butler (both D-Calif.), members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote to senior Department of Justice (DOJ) officials expressing serious concerns about recent complaints regarding the safety and well-being of juveniles detained in probation camps and facilities across Los Angeles County. The Senators also called for the DOJ to detail their recent and planned actions to address wrongdoings at the Los Angeles County Probation Camps.
Since the early 2000s, there have been repeated reports of sexual abuse at the probation camps. In 2006, DOJ’s Civil Rights Division began investigating conditions at the facilities, concluding in 2008 that Los Angeles County was violating the constitutional rights of juvenile detainees at various juvenile probation camps, detention centers, and other detention facilities. The DOJ and Los Angeles County agreed on a plan to improve the probation camps and entered into a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) for supervision of the camps that lasted for approximately eight years. In 2015, the MOA was terminated when DOJ found the Camps to be in compliance with the conditions of the agreement.
Since then, however, new allegations of sexual abuse at the probation camps have been reported. In August 2022, Deputy Probation Officers and other employees at the Probation Department facilities (70 plaintiffs in total) filed a lawsuit against the County of Los Angeles for sexual abuse, harassment, and molestation incidents that occurred between 1985 and 2019. Later that year, 279 plaintiffs filed another lawsuit, claiming repeated sexual abuse by probation officers.
“Many of these reports are not only deeply disturbing, but they also generate many questions regarding the DOJ monitoring and accountability protocols in place for these institutions,” wrote the Senators.
“The [Memorandum of Agreement] resulted from the County’s clear failure to protect youth from harm, including at the hands of Deputy Probation Officers responsible for their care and wellbeing,” continued the Senators. “However, this abuse of institutionalized children clearly continued, and as a result, hundreds, if not thousands, of young girls were abused, and their lives forever altered. Given the reports of childhood sexual abuse spanning decades, we have grave concerns how the Camps were deemed in compliance by DOJ in 2015.”
Specifically, the Senators requested that within 30 days DOJ:
- Provide all the evidence for DOJ’s determination that the probation camps complied with the terms of the MOA;
- Describe any actions DOJ has taken concerning Los Angeles County Probation Camps after they were found to be in full compliance with the MOA and provide all reports and/or complaints DOJ has received since monitoring ended in 2015; and
- Detail what actions DOJ can and will take in light of the recent allegations of sexual misconduct at various Los Angeles County Probation Camps.
Los Angeles County currently has two juvenile halls, Los Padrinos and Barry J. Nidorf, which hold over 300 juveniles. In February, state regulators found that the conditions at the facilities remained “unsuitable” and ruled that the County must evacuate all juveniles or make substantial improvements within two months.
In Los Angeles County’s 2023-24 Recommended Budget, it was estimated that the County would be forced to pay between $1.6 billion and $3 billion to resolve the more than 3,000 claims alleging childhood sexual assault at various County and non-county facilities.
Letter-to-DOJ-On-Juvenile-Probation-Camps-04.23.2024