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Supervisors order security, screening and expanded treatment after overdoses at county juvenile halls
Summary
By a 4-0 vote with one abstention the Board directed probation to increase screening, deploy scanners and canine teams, review contractor vetting, end an implicated tutoring contract, and accelerate a substance-use MOU to expand treatment.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a motion aimed at curbing the flow of drugs and other contraband into county juvenile halls and expanding substance-use treatment for youth after a recent suspected overdose incident at Los Padrinos and earlier deaths linked to fentanyl.
The emergency motion, introduced by Supervisor Janice Hahn and coauthored by Supervisor Lindsay Horvath, directs the Probation Department to install airport-style body scanners at Los Padrinos and Barry J. Neidorff juvenile halls (where feasible), strengthen canine screening and canine deployment, tighten entry screening for staff, contractors and visitors, review background-check and training standards for contractors and staff, and consider limiting what individuals can bring into facilities.
Hahn also directed the probation department to end the county contract with StudentNest, the tutoring contractor whose employee was arrested after allegedly bringing more than 170 pills into Los Padrinos, and to accelerate finalizing a memorandum of understanding with the Substance Abuse Prevention and Control (SAPC) to expand treatment programming inside facilities.
Probation officials said many of the changes are already underway: the department has added contract security, expanded canine teams and created an intelligence/investigations unit to pursue suppliers. Probation said it has ordered a body scanner and is working on operational issues for installing units at different campuses. The department also described recent investments in a new safety-and-security specialist classification and a criminal intelligence unit that assisted in recent arrests.
Supervisors and public speakers were split on the balance between security measures and treatment-first approaches. Youth advocates and credible messengers supporting the Anti-Recidivism Coalition urged investment in community-based, voluntary treatment and caution about militarization of facilities and criminalizing families and trusted community providers. Other speakers, staff and family members urged swift interdiction steps, including scanners and consistent canine screening for all adults entering facilities, to reduce immediate risk. Hahn said the motion was intended to be urgent and pragmatic: "Extraordinary times demand extraordinary measures," she said, adding that the goal was to save lives and restore safe family contact, including restoring contact practices such as parent hugs.
The board approved the motion 4-0 with Supervisor Holly Mitchell recorded as abstaining. The motion asks for report-backs and for Probation and SAPC to provide timelines for treatment expansion and for the criminal-intelligence efforts to continue.
