Keeping Kids in Tiny Cells Downtown Is Cruel, and Probably Illegal
The Men's Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles currently holds about 30 youths under the age of 18 -- twice as many kids as the combined total for all the other adult jails in California.
These are all children who have been charged or tried as adults but, by law, they must be separated by sight and sound from adult detainees. To comply with that standard, the youths are generally locked in windowless single cells for 23 1/2 hours each day. The cells measure 4 by 8 feet, which means that they are confined in spaces narrower than their outstretched arms.
It's outrageous that youths as young as 14 should be held in such conditions. But even though the county Board of Supervisors decided in July to move them all to a juvenile hall, they're still there. And this month the sheriff's office said it had no intention of moving them all. Those who are close to age 18 or who are serving sentences of one year or less in county jail will have to stay.
What's life like for these kids? In addition to 30 minutes a day for showers and phone calls, they have a three-hour recreation period once a week in individual rooftop cages that are just slightly larger than their cells and contain only a pull-up bar and a telephone. Apart from these brief breaks, family and attorney visits and trips to the nurse or court, they remain locked up with little or nothing to do.
They may not watch television or listen to the radio. They eat their meals alone in their cells.
There is no classroom instruction in the jail. Instead, each youth sees a teacher through the cell bars for five to 15 minutes, two or three times a week. Jail staff told us that state education laws required only one hour of face-to-face instruction per week, but the jail does not meet even that minimum requirement. In addition, jail officials make no efforts to identify youths with special education needs, despite a federal law that requires they do so.
In these harsh detention conditions, there have been at least three suicide attempts in the last six months. One boy tried to kill himself on June 30. Two others attempted suicide on or about May 24. One of these boys had a history of mental illness and had previously attempted to kill himself while in police custody.
It was the suicide attempts that persuaded the Board of Supervisors that the jail was unsuitable and unsafe for kids. That was nearly five months ago. Sheriff Lee Baca told us at the end of July that all of the kids would be out within 60 days. But it wasn't until Nov. 14 that the first four kids moved from the Men's Central Jail to a juvenile hall in Norwalk.
