The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is scheduled Tuesday to consider supporting the creation of a permanent juvenile detention facility at Camp Joseph Scott or Camp Kenyon Scudder, which are both in Saugus.
If approved, the board motion – submitted by county Supervisors Holly Mitchell and Sheila Kuehl –would have the county adopt a state subcommittee’s recommendations to move violent youth offenders to the Santa Clarita facilities, which were originally designed to host non-violent youth offenders.
The motion directs the county to “ensure that the appropriate renovations are made at Scott or Scudder within 90 days to be safe and ready for use,” while male youth sentenced after July 1, 2021, are temporarily housed at county-run Campus Kilpatrick in Malibu and female youth are housed at county-run Dorothy Kirby Center in Commerce.
The Santa Clarita City Council voted Tuesday to oppose a state-appointed committee’s decision to move juvenile offenders to Camp Joseph Scott and Camp Kenyon Scudder in Saugus.
Council members directed city staff to draft a letter expressing the city’s position to the Juvenile Justice Coordinating Council’s Juvenile Justice Realignment Block Grant Ad-Hoc Subcommittee, which announced its plans in late May to move juvenile offenders to the two facilities.
“This is not the way government is supposed to work,” said Mayor Bill Miranda. “We’re supposed to be informed. We’re supposed to be involved. We’re supposed to be part of the decision-making.”
Jessica Cejnar / Thursday, March 11 @ 1:19 p.m. / Local Government
As California Prepares to Close Its Juvenile Detention Centers, Del Norte and Other Rural Counties are Wondering How They ll Fill The Gap
A decision to shutter California’s juvenile incarceration facilities has the Del Norte County Probation Department trying to figure out where, and how, to house the youth that would formerly have been the state’s responsibility.
But it’s not just a Del Norte County problem and it’s not just a probation department issue, Chief Probation Officer Lonnie Reyman told the Wild Rivers Outpost on Wednesday.
“We as a community and Humboldt County as a community, Siskiyou County as a community, we’re on the hook responsible for these kids,” he said. “It’s gotta be a whole holistic countywide response rather than just, ‘Hey, probation, deal with this.’”