Youth Law Center

The state is closing California's largest youth prison as the population of juvenile offenders in state custody continues to decline, corrections officials announced Thursday. The Heman G. Stark Youth Correctional Facility in Chino will be converted into an adult prison, state officials said. The move is part of a plan to "right-size" staff at the Division of Juvenile Justice, which is reducing its workforce by 400 employees by the end of this year to save the state up to $40 million, said Bernard Warner, the chief deputy secretary for the division.

The state is closing California's largest youth prison as the population of juvenile offenders in state custody continues to decline, corrections officials announced Thursday. The Heman G. Stark Youth Correctional Facility in Chino will be converted into an adult prison, state officials said. The move is part of a plan to "right-size" staff at the Division of Juvenile Justice, which is reducing its workforce by 400 employees by the end of this year to save the state up to $40 million, said Bernard Warner, the chief deputy secretary for the division.

Thousands of abused and neglected children awaiting foster homes in California are being housed in overcrowded and dangerous conditions in county shelters, according to a lawsuit filed Monday by a public interest law center. The suit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court by the nonprofit Youth Law Center, alleges that the state has not enforced proper standards of care at shelters in nine counties, including Orange, Los Angeles and San Diego.

They exposed the state's locking up of juvenile offenders for 23 hours at a stretch in cells smeared with blood and feces. They helped spark an unprecedented federal court takeover of California's prison healthcare system after revealing that prisoners were dying because of medical neglect. They ended the practice of placing mentally ill prisoners in extreme isolation.

More than three years after it was supposed to have completed the task, the state Department of Social Services has been ordered by a judge to draw up procedures to help find better homes for foster children. A ruling last week by San Francisco Superior Court Judge Raymond D. Williamson means that social workers statewide should soon have more information about children before they pick a group home, or other place, for them to live.

The county Probation Department, which is accused of mistreating youths at Juvenile Hall, agreed in the middle of trial Monday to stop using soft-tie restraints and switch to fleece-lined leather cuffs. The county views the change as insignificant, but civil rights lawyers hailed the agreement. "It's only a partial improvement, but it is an improvement," said Mark I.

In the first such trial ruling of its kind in California, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department was ordered Thursday to halt its practice of locking up juveniles with adult offenders in the Lennox Substation. After an eight-day trial in which he toured the jail to see the extent of contact that youngsters have with adult inmates, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Norman Dowds ruled that the county had violated state and federal laws.

They exposed the state's locking up of juvenile offenders for 23 hours at a stretch in cells smeared with blood and feces. They helped spark an unprecedented federal court takeover of California's prison healthcare system after revealing that prisoners were dying because of medical neglect. They ended the practice of placing mentally ill prisoners in extreme isolation.

Lawyers in a class-action suit over Juvenile Hall conditions argued in court Thursday that a county policy of tying youths to their beds during emergency confrontations is a product of the operators' "siege mentality" and should be eliminated. "It's the staff making exaggerated demands for submission to authority," said Mark I. Soler, the lead attorney representing past and present Juvenile Hall inmates. "They are not trained to realize they are only escalating the tension."

Calling for better treatment of youngsters confined at Orange County Juvenile Hall, a judge ordered the county Wednesday to obey strict new rules before throwing adolescent detainees into padded rooms or cuffing them to their beds. Superior Court Judge Linda H. McLaughlin concluded that such disciplinary methods--when imposed by unqualified people and conducted without proper supervision--violates the teen-agers' constitutional right to be free from bodily restraint.

Thousands of abused and neglected children awaiting foster homes in California are being housed in overcrowded and dangerous conditions in county shelters, according to a lawsuit filed Monday by a public interest law center. The suit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court by the nonprofit Youth Law Center, alleges that the state has not enforced proper standards of care at shelters in nine counties, including Orange, Los Angeles and San Diego.

More than three years after it was supposed to have completed the task, the state Department of Social Services has been ordered by a judge to draw up procedures to help find better homes for foster children. A ruling last week by San Francisco Superior Court Judge Raymond D. Williamson means that social workers statewide should soon have more information about children before they pick a group home, or other place, for them to live.

The boy was only 12, but he seemed even younger that day, in trouble again and locked in a jail holding cell. Curled on the floor, he cried. He begged to go home. He called for his mother. Two days later, young John Willingham acted, tragically, more like an adult. Left unsupervised by child care workers for an hour and a half--contrary to detention rules--he tied a sheet to the frame of his bed and hanged himself. "Sickening," one observer called the sixth-grader's death.

Calling for better treatment of youngsters confined at Orange County Juvenile Hall, a judge ordered the county Wednesday to obey strict new rules before throwing adolescent detainees into padded rooms or cuffing them to their beds. Superior Court Judge Linda H. McLaughlin concluded that such disciplinary methods--when imposed by unqualified people and conducted without proper supervision--violates the teen-agers' constitutional right to be free from bodily restraint.

Lawyers in a class-action suit over Juvenile Hall conditions argued in court Thursday that a county policy of tying youths to their beds during emergency confrontations is a product of the operators' "siege mentality" and should be eliminated. "It's the staff making exaggerated demands for submission to authority," said Mark I. Soler, the lead attorney representing past and present Juvenile Hall inmates. "They are not trained to realize they are only escalating the tension."

The county Probation Department, which is accused of mistreating youths at Juvenile Hall, agreed in the middle of trial Monday to stop using soft-tie restraints and switch to fleece-lined leather cuffs. The county views the change as insignificant, but civil rights lawyers hailed the agreement. "It's only a partial improvement, but it is an improvement," said Mark I.

The boy was only 12, but he seemed even younger that day, in trouble again and locked in a jail holding cell. Curled on the floor, he cried. He begged to go home. He called for his mother. Two days later, young John Willingham acted, tragically, more like an adult. Left unsupervised by child care workers for an hour and a half--contrary to detention rules--he tied a sheet to the frame of his bed and hanged himself. "Sickening," one observer called the sixth-grader's death.

The California Supreme Court gave prosecutors a victory Thursday, ruling that serious felonies committed by a juvenile, even when dealt with by a Juvenile Court, can count as prior strikes under the state's three-strikes law. Legal experts said the ruling settles the issue of what a judge may consider in deciding whether a convicted adult felon is subject to the 25-year-to-life sentence mandated by the three-strikes law for repeat felons.

In the first such trial ruling of its kind in California, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department was ordered Thursday to halt its practice of locking up juveniles with adult offenders in the Lennox Substation. After an eight-day trial in which he toured the jail to see the extent of contact that youngsters have with adult inmates, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Norman Dowds ruled that the county had violated state and federal laws.