The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is urging state officials to reconsider a policy change that would prohibit juvenile offenders with a history of childhood asthma from participating in a highly praised state program that provides firefighter training to incarcerated young men.
The proposed change, effective July 1, could derail L.A. County’s efforts to increase the number of juveniles it sends to the Pine Grove Youth Conservation Camp as the county desperately looks for any opportunity to reduce the detainee populations at its own struggling juvenile facilities.
Pine Grove’s current policy bars individuals with active asthma, county officials said.
If implemented, the new policy would disproportionately impact juvenile offenders in Los Angeles County, officials said.
“This policy change would have dramatic and devastating effects on youth from Los Angeles County and their opportunity to participate in Pine Grove,” wrote Supervisor Janice Hahn in a motion. “Los Angeles County has a higher than national rate of childhood asthma, and the rate is particularly high in urban neighborhoods along the freeways.”
An attorney whose client at the Barry J. Nidorf Secure Youth Treatment Facility was screened for Pine Grove confirmed that he was told that his client, who has a history of childhood asthma, would only be allowed to participate if he was accepted and grandfathered in before July 1.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation did not respond to a request to comment, and it was unclear what prompted the policy change.
The Board of Supervisors at their June 17 meeting unanimously agreed to send a five-signature opposition letter to the CDCR to urge the department’s leadership to reconsider. Childhood asthma is not a disqualifying factor for becoming an L.A County firefighter and shouldn’t be for Pine Grove either, Hahn wrote in her motion.
Asthma can be misdiagnosed and symptoms may lessen, or disappear, as an individual ages, officials said.
“These aren’t just temporary jobs for youth in the justice system,” Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said. “They’re full career pathways to community service, to good paying jobs, opening doors to forestry and to the fire service.”
State law allows formerly incarcerated firefighters to get their records expunged.
In May, the supervisors took that a step further by creating a new entry-level position within L.A. County Fire specifically to help the formerly incarcerated individuals transition into careers with the agency. Programs like Pine Grove can be life-changing and offer an opportunity for youth with troubled pasts to give back and gain experience in the field, advocates say.
Youth from Pine Grove were part of the firefighting efforts in Los Angeles County in January and were honored by the California State Senate for their service. Members of inmate fire crews are paid $5.80 to $10.24 per day, depending on their skill level, as well as an additional $1 per hour during an active emergency, according to CDCR.
“It really is a successful program,” said Jeff Macomber, CDCR secretary, at the time. “We see lower incident (and) violence rates and there’s a tremendous opportunity for this group to have a future beyond corrections.”
Rosalino Pavia, co-founder of the nonprofit Hoops 4 Justice, spent a year at Pine Grove after he was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon at 16 years old in 2011. Though he was originally disqualified because his medical record showed him as having asthma, he was able to reapply after having a prescription for an inhaler he hadn’t used for years removed from his records, he said
Today, he helps to provide life skills training to incarcerated youth through Hoops 4 Justice and credits Pine Grove for helping him turn his life around. It offered him discipline, one-on-one counseling and a sense of purpose and belonging during a time when he needed it, he said.
“I had a whole crew, I had a whole schedule,” he said in an interview. “I wasn’t behind bars, I was eating good food, I had a great relationship with staff. It was like a big family.”
Pine Grove, located in Amador County in the Sierra Nevada, began operating in 1945 and is open to young men ranging in age from 18 to 25 who committed their offenses as a juvenile. Eligible youth must not have any rule violations within the last six months at their current facility and can be kicked out of the program — and sent back to juvenile hall — for behavioral issues.
During his time, Pavia rose to a leadership role in his crew of 14 and fought fires throughout the state. The support and gratitude the crew received from helping others was transformative, he said.
“Residents are bringing you water and Gatorade, crying and saying ‘thank you, you saved my home’ and you’ve never received that love,” he said. “They actually feel like they’re serving somebody other than their gang or whatever.”
Pavia, who was tried as an adult and sentenced to state prison, was removed from the program after about a year as a result, he said. He tried to join the adult version of the program, but was not accepted because he’d been convicted of a violent crime, he said.
The loss of the camaraderie and the sense of service he had at Pine Grove made for a rough transition initially, he said, but his time at the fire camp pushed him to continue to make self improvements, he said.
“It made me a better person, for sure,” he said.
He went from having no walls and the freedom to hug his parents during visits at the Pine Grove facility in Amador County to being stuck behind plexiglass when his mother came to see him at Chino State Prison, he said.
“That was one of the hardest parts of the transition from that,” he said.
Pavia said he hopes Pine Grove will not go through with the policy change and believes it should open up non-firefighting positions for even those who have such conditions. Youth at the facility can already work in supporting roles as cooks, or landscapers, or mechanics, he said.
Los Angeles County currently has no juveniles at Pine Grove. During a June 3 presentation, Probation Chief Guillermo Viera Rosa, who previously worked for CDCR, blamed a lack of interest in the voluntary program. Supervisor Kathryn Barger, however, said she continues to hear of probation staff members who are dissuading youth from applying.
“We’re looking to decrease barriers, but within our own department, we’re putting up barriers,” she said. “I’m told our employees are telling the youth it is too difficult, you don’t want to do it. We should be encouraging our youth to take a step toward really an opportunity to build a career around something that is a good paying job.”
After the supervisors — and a Superior Court Judge — ordered the Probation Department to screen more youth for eligibility, the department identified nearly 30 who could qualify and had interest. Caseworkers are now “actively reviewing case files and behavior records to ensure timely and appropriate referrals to Pine Grove,” according to a report provided to the board Tuesday, June 17.
Those referrals could be critical to reducing the population at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall and at Barry J. Nidorf. Los Padrinos was ordered to close by the state in December, but the county refused to comply. The matter went to court and Judge Miguel Espinoza accepted the department’s plan to reduce the population at Los Padrinos by transferring youth to other facilities, including a shift that will place all of the girls in the county’s custody at Campus Kilpatrick in the Santa Monica Mountains.
As part of his order, Espinoza directed the county to report back within 45 days on its efforts to place more youth into the Pine Grove program. The next court hearing is scheduled for July 18.