On a sunny day in late January, Judge Peter A. Hernandez briefly interrupted testimony in his Los Angeles County courtroom, sounding genuinely baffled. — In the case before him, the state of California was arguing that the Los Angeles County Probation Department, which runs the county’s juvenile detention halls, had done such a poor job, and for so long, that the court should authorize a leadership takeover — called a receivership.
The lawsuit over detention conditions, first filed in 2021, was assigned to Hernandez in the summer of 2024. And despite dozens of hours of prior testimony in his court on the minutiae of daily operations, Hernandez said it was the first time he’d been briefed about how the department had failed to master the most basic of workplace functions. Probation Chief Guillermo Viera Rosa testified that until recently, “there was no database in which people were being scheduled,” no dependable way to track which employees were supposed to show up, who called out, and where staff were posted once a shift began. Viera Rosa said in some cases, between callouts and staff medically unable to perform essential functions, as much as 85% of employees had been effectively unavailable. — “I’m a bit troubled and alarmed,” Hernandez said. “It’s kind of hard for me to understand how this kept going with no one saying anything.”
While scheduling databases may sound banal, many of the scandals that have long-plagued juvenile justice — not just in LA County, but across the country — turn on these kinds of dry, administrative questions. Basic staffing problems have led to violations of standards and safety in juvenile detention centers in many states. When excessive callouts lead to understaffing, other employees call out too, afraid that theywill be left vulnerable to violence. Then others call out to avoid being “held over” past their shifts to cover for their colleagues’ missed shifts, LA County officials have said. It’s the very definition of a vicious cycle, and it has devastating effects on youth in the care of the county…