Michael Dempsey, the veteran corrections officer the state wants put in charge of L.A. County’s juvenile facilities, has spent 40 years in the industry, including running a maximum security juvenile facility in Indiana, but, like many of the staff working at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall, even he fears for his safety during visits to the troubled facility.
Dempsey described probation officers’ frequent concerns about violence inside the juvenile hall as “true, real fears” during testimony Friday, Oct. 24, at a court hearing to determine how to address L.A. County’s failure to comply with a series of reforms mandated by a 2021 settlement agreement with the California Department of Justice.
If the state gets its way, the juvenile facilities would be placed in receivership, with Dempsey at the helm.
“It takes a lot for me to walk into a facility and feel fear, and that happens to me when I walk into L.P.,” he said, referencing Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall.
Dempsey is currently the independent court-appointed monitor, originally picked by L.A. County, who oversees the county’s compliance with the settlement. Since 2021, he’s worked with both sides to try to improve conditions inside the county’s juvenile halls.
But the staffing crisis behind the violence, drug overdoses and generally deteriorating environment inside Los Padrinos is unlike anything Dempsey had seen before, he testified. At the heart of the issue is “staff wellness,” he said.
Those who show up don’t feel safe, work in a “filthy, unkempt” facility, and are held over for excessively long shifts when someone on the next shift calls out, Dempsey said.
The county Probation Department has struggled to maintain adequate staffing for years. In August, the department had a 36% vacancy rate, more than three times the national average for a police department. Despite aggressive recruiting, about two-thirds of its new hires in 2024 had left within a year of graduating from the academy.
More than half of the 816 employees at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall and at the county’s Secure Youth Treatment Facilities are on some type of leave, either intermittently or continuously, according to the county. Hundreds of field probation officers, who would typically handle traditional probation services for adults and juveniles, have been redirected to Los Padrinos to fill those gaps instead.
Call-outs are common across the country, but not at the level seen in Los Angeles County, Dempsey said. Those numbers fluctuate so much day to day that it is nearly impossible to predict. Ten people might call off Monday and then 50 on Tuesday, he said.
When staff members don’t show up, there aren’t enough people to take juveniles to school on time, medical appointments are missed and recreational activities aren’t offered.
“Idleness for youth skyrockets and when that happens, incidents of violence skyrocket,” Dempsey said. “You see that virtually every day.”
In turn, even more people call off.
“It’s gotten better over time, but, on certain days, it is excessively high,” Dempsey said.
In response to Dempsey’s comments, the president of the Los Angeles County Probation Officers Union said probation officers’ pleas for increased safety have been ignored for decades.
“The facilities themselves are unsafe and not conducive to rehabilitation,” union chief Eddie Chism said. “Our members walk into environments that are understaffed, chaotic, and dangerous because the county has failed to prioritize staff wellness or safety.”
The county recently has taken away bonus pay for officers working inside the halls, he said.
“This crisis didn’t appear overnight,” he said. “It is the direct result of years of neglect and denial.”
The county previously asked Hernandez to grant it powers to cut through employee protections, instead of installing a receiver.
The settlement between the DOJ and L.A. County outlines hundreds of reforms necessary to address poor conditions within the juvenile halls. It requires the county to maintain basic living standards, to stem the flow of contraband into the facilities, to maintain adequate staffing and to ensure youth have access to education and medical services.
Nearly five years later, the juvenile halls remain out of compliance with 75% of the terms, according to Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office.
Juveniles have lost thousands of hours of schooling as a result of probation’s staffing issues, according to Dempsey.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Peter A. Hernandez, who took over the case recently, is using the hearings to get up to speed on the nuances and complexities of the 2021 agreement. Hernandez previously ruled against the state’s initial request for a receivership, but has left open the possibility of returning to that decision at the end of the hearings, which, as of now, are expected to continue until late November or early December.
The county’s attorneys called Probation Chief Guillermo Viera Rosa to testify on the background of the case and used his testimony to flag statistics on the crimes allegedly committed by the juveniles. About 45% of the juveniles in Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall and in the Barry J. Nidorf Secure Youth Treatment Facility have been charged with murder or attempted murder, Viera Rosa said. The average age is for those within the facilities is 17.
Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall is the largest facility within the juvenile system, with a population of about 258. Nearly every juvenile there is considered “predisposition,” meaning their cases have not been adjudicated.
The county argues that it is bogged down by the sometimes opposing mandates of multiple oversight agencies. Los Padrinos was ordered to close last year by the Board of State and Community Corrections, the regulatory body overseeing California’s juvenile halls, but the county has refused to comply and has filed a lawsuit accusing the BSCC of applying the law too subjectively during inspections.
That’s on top of needing to comply with the agreement with the Department of Justice, and a separate court-approved depopulation plan that was supposed to reduce Los Padrinos’ population to fewer than 200 by August — a milestone it has since missed amid a surge in the population this summer.
Dempsey, in his testimony, stated that he doesn’t believe the county has an internal strategic plan for dealing with the crisis. Though it was required to do so, the county is still out of compliance with requirements to create staffing plans for Los Padrinos and Barry J. Nidorf, he testified.
Officers redeployed from the field have not been sufficiently trained in deescalation and adolescent development, Dempsey claimed. Some were given pepper spray without proper instruction on when to use it, he said.
The county’s attorney denied that is the case.
The hearing highlighted the complexities — and sometimes subjective nature — of the requirements placed on L.A. County, but also raised questions about why it has failed to comply with simple tasks, such as one mandate of the settlement agreement requiring the county to consult with a labor relations expert on ways to improve staffing.
Probation spokesperson Vicky Waters said the department is hoping the hearings will bring “a little bit more specificity” to what it needs to do to come into compliance.
“At the end of the day, we all have the same goal,” she said.
Dempsey did not finish his testimony and is expected to return for cross-examination when the hearing continues on Nov. 7.