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Planned Office of Diversion and Reentry Expansion Not Enough to Bring LA County Into Compliance With Federal Lawsuits, Says ACLU
On Tuesday, May 2, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a motion to move the county closer to a goal of having 1,750 new beds to divert people experiencing mental illness out of LA County’s jail system and into supportive housing. In October 2022, in a...
Interim Probation Chief quits, reportedly in clash with new Chief Strategist for Juvenile Operations & LA County CEO has a $30 million plan
Last night, Monday night, just after 5 p.m., Karen Fletcher, the Interim Chief of LA County Probation, resigned from her position as head of the nation’s largest probation system. Her last day on the job will be on May 19, Fletcher wrote in her letter to probation staff members.
Op-Ed: The state should close Los Angeles County’s failed juvenile halls. It’s time to start over.
There are no acceptable excuses for the resistance county leaders demonstrate against making critically needed changes at Los Angeles County’s youth detention centers, most urgently Barry J Nidorf Juvenile Hall, and Central Juvenile Hall.. If events of the past month are any indication, problems of violence and drug abuse...
CA Bill Would Limit the Criminalization of Survivors of Abuse and Trafficking
More than one-third of women in California have experienced domestic violence. For women in prison, abuse rates are much higher. Approximately 79 percent of women in federal and state prisons in 1999 reported previous physical abuse, and more than 60% reported past sexual abuse. When survivors of domestic violence and...
At the LA Times Festival of Books 3 gifted authors talked about foster care & youth justice. Here’s a look at what they said.
On Saturday and Sunday of this past weekend, the University of Southern California hosted the LA Times Festival of Books, a two day extravaganza that celebrates books of all kinds, for all ages, and also lets those who attend get to know their favorite authors, and be introduced to new potential favorites. Started in 1996, it has become the largest literary and cultural festival in the nation.
Op-ed: I’m Letting the Healing Begin By Sharing My Story
I often quote the Langston Hughes poem “Mother to Son” and Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask,” because “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. It’s had tacks in it, And splinters, And boards torn up,” which became obstacles for me as I wore a “mask that grins and lies,” hiding my cheeks and shading my eyes.
LA County reorganizes the youth side of probation. So will it help?
On Wednesday, April 19, Los Angeles County CEO, Fesia Davenport officially notified all those who work for the nation’s largest probation department that Guillermo Viera Rosa is now on the job as the department’s “Chief Strategist for Juvenile Operations.”. As WitnessLA reported earlier in the month, Viera...
Former LASD Deputy Cleared of Criminal Charges in Killing of Andrés Guardado Is Charged by Feds With Falsely Imprisoning a Skateboarder
Miguel Vega, the former Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy who shot 18-year-old Andrés Guardado five times in the back in 2020, will not be criminally prosecuted for the killing, the LA County District Attorney’s Office revealed in a 31-page memo on April 14, 2023. In a separate...
A California law forced police to release shooting footage. Now videos follow the same script
Ken Pritchett clicks his mouse and the logo of a Southern California police department pops up on a computer monitor the width of his shoulders. Another click and the image flips to a three-dimensional map. A glowing orange arrow indicates the direction a man ran as he tried to evade police.
Probation officer is stabbed by a kid at juvenile hall where no one is safe
On Monday night, April 10, at around 10:30 p.m. four of the kids in the Q unit of Los Angeles County Probation’s Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall didn’t want to go into their rooms and go to bed. When they made no progress with the four boys who...
Conditions at LA County’s Jail Intake Center Continue to Violate Judge’s Preliminary Injunction, ACLU Says
Last year, conditions at Los Angeles County’s jail intake center reached lows so disturbing that the ACLU filed an emergency motion on September 8, 2022, asking U.S. District Judge Dean D. Pregerson, who oversees the county’s 2015 federal consent decree, to issue a temporary restraining order against the county.
Can Guillermo Viera Rosa transform LA County’s youth probation catastrophe?
As most readers know, in recent months, things have been going from bad to worse at a disturbing clip when it comes to LA County probation’s two youth halls, Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall, in Sylmar, CA, and Central Juvenile Hall on Eastlake Ave. northeast of downtown LA. This...
Policing Bills to Watch This Legislative Season
Starting in March, a handful of important California policing bills hot from the printer landed in the state’s Senate and Assembly committees for consideration and revision. Compensation for victims (and families) after violent police encounters. One standout bill, SB 838, seeks to remove barriers to victim compensation claims for...
In a mixed & confusing verdict, jury finds Mark Ridley-Thomas guilty of 7 of the 19 charges in corruption trial, which could mean a lengthy prison term
Midway through their fifth day of deliberation, the jury in the federal bribery and corruption trial of Mark Ridley-Thomas came in with a verdict, in which they found former member of the LA County Board of Supervisors, two time member of the Los Angeles City Council, and former member of the state assembly, and also the state senate guilty of seven of the 19 counts of which he was charged.
New York’s mandatory reporter training wants to have it both ways. That’s an improvement.
Soon WitnessLA will publish the first chapter of our new and important series on the pressing need to reimagine LA County’s Department of Child and Family Services (DCFS), the largest regional child welfare system in the nation. But while we get ready for the launch of this critically important series, we thought you would enjoy reading the essay below by our friend, Richard Wexler, who is the executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, and one of the wisest voices in the topic of child welfare, period.
Can Cash Payments Improve the Health of Pregnant People and Children?
Guaranteed income programs across California are working with pregnant women and families in an effort to break the cycle of poverty-driven health disparities. It was like money falling from the sky. Except the city of Los Angeles would be sending it to her in a debit card every month. A...
CA’s Chief Probation Officers call for immediate limited court receivership for LA County’s youth facilities
In what appears to be a completely unprecedented action, on Wednesday, March 22, the statewide organization known as the Chief Probation Officers of California (CPOC) sent out press release asking state and county leaders to put Los Angeles County’s juvenile facilities, most particularly the county’s two deeply troubled juvenile halls, into “a narrowly tailored” court receivership.
How the failure to apply the state’s legal guidelines has resulted in unnecessary detentions in the county’s unsafe youth lock-ups
For those who are unfamiliar, The California Welfare and Institutions Code (WIC) is one of 29 Codes that contain state statutes. The following section of WIC sets the tone for the youth justice system in the state:. WIC 203: An order adjudging a minor to be a ward of the...
Reinventing San Quentin
The maximum security San Quentin State Prison, long-time home of the largest number of people on death row in the nation (and in the entire Western Hemisphere), will be redesigned as a prison focused on rehabilitation and education to better prepare people for a successful return to their families and communities, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced on March 17.
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