Attack reported on inmate at L.A. County youth facility
Officials say a group of Latino inmates assaulted a black inmate Nov. 1 at one of the juvenile detention camps recently criticized in a federal report for having inadequate oversight.
An 18-year-old incarcerated at a Los Angeles County juvenile probation camp suffered a serious neck injury earlier this month in a racially motivated attack that took place the day after a criticized unsafe conditions in the facilities, probation officials said Friday.
The victim, who is African American, was attacked by a group of Latino youths Nov. 1 at Camp Miller in Malibu, said spokeswoman Kerri Webb.
Probation officials reported that the assault was racially motivated but did not appear to be gang-related.
The report of the attack comes at a time when the probation camps are under increasing scrutiny. This week, county supervisors approved plans to hire independent monitors to force the probation department to comply with its own standards for, among other things, staffing and violence prevention.
Probation Chief Robert Taylor said Friday that his office has made strides in addressing federal concerns at the camps.
"The camps are safe. You're going to have incidents like this in any facility our size with the kind of offenders we have," Taylor said.
But U.S. Department of Justice officials, in a report issued Oct. 31, noted that probation staff members routinely failed to protect youths in their care from attack by other detainees.
"We learned that fights occur not only within the staff's field of supervision, but many occur out of staff's line of sight, in places that could not be well supervised given the small number of staff," federal investigators wrote, based on interviews with youths, reviews of probation records and visits to camps.
Webb said probation officials were still investigating the circumstances of the attack and had not been able to question the victim while he was in the hospital. Officials do not suspect any misconduct by staff at the camp at the time of the attack, she said.
"We don't want to blame any of our staff members on this -- they acted appropriately and right away," Webb said.
But youth advocates say the attack is symptomatic of broader problems.
"We've continuously advised probation officials that they need to involve community leaders, gang interventionists, to help squash the violence," said Kim McGill of the Youth Justice Coalition.
On the day of the attack, Webb said Camp Miller had 10 probation staffers and 102 youths. The staffing ratio recommended by the state is 1 to 15, while federal officials recommend a ratio of 1 to 8.
Hennessy-Fiske is a Times staff writer.
molly.hennessy-fiske@ latimes.com
- Violence Undermines County Juvenile Hall Mar 28, 2006
- Juvenile Felonies Can Count Toward 3 Strikes Jul 04, 1997
- Abuse Reports Cloud Youth Authority Dec 24, 1999
