LOS ANGELES (AP) The U.S. Justice Department announced
Wednesday that a civil rights settlement agreement has been reached
with county officials over conditions and services at its three
juvenile halls.
Federal investigators in April 2003 released findings that
showed the civil rights of children were being violated at Los
Padrinos Juvenile Detention Center, Central Juvenile Hall and Barry
J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall.
Children were subject to pepper spray and hogtying procedures at
the county facilities and some went without mental health treatment
for days despite threatening to kill themselves and episodes of
self-mutilation and razor blade-swallowing.
The settlement agreement between the federal agency, the county
and its Office of Education avoids litigation. It forces the county
to improve suicide prevention procedures and improve medical,
educational and other services for incarcerated youths. The county
operates the juvenile halls and the Office of Education provides
educational services.
The agreement calls for the juvenile halls to adequately staff
mental health specialists to screen and treat the approximately
1,500 youths in the juvenile halls.
Federal investigators notified the county in November 2000 that
they were going to investigate its juvenile halls. The federal
probe followed a critical county grand jury assessment that found,
among other things, that employees frequently overmedicated youths
with up to 16 different psychotropic drugs that were used to treat
depression, anxiety and mood disorders.
The agreement with the Justice Department calls for the county
to train nurses on the side effects of psychotropic drugs and
requires nurses to document the side effects.
All staffers who work with jailed youths also must undergo
suicide prevention training to better treat suicidal youths, the
agreement said.
The agreement also said policies should be developed to restrict
the use of pepper spray on children.
Michael Graham, a retired county undersheriff, was named as the
agreement monitor and seven people, including mental health and
education experts, were named to a monitoring team.
The agreement praised county officials for their cooperation
with the federal government.
``Early on we expressed a desire to use this as a resource to
improve any shortcomings that we had,'' said Richard Shumsky, the
county's chief probation officer. ``I think on virtually every
issue there was agreement.''
(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)