Juvenile Hall: Question of Space : Facility for 334 Inmates Often Runs From 20 to 57 Above Capacity

“This is a model room,” the teen-ager said, standing aside like a tour guide as Don Hallstrom cast a glance over the one-man cell.

Here in the B Unit, the inmates, or “kids” as Hallstrom refers to them, are “the youngest and least sophisticated” at Juvenile Hall--first offenders just barely on the wrong side of the law. The 16-year-old “tour guide” who gave Juvenile Hall Supt. Hallstrom an unsolicited glimpse of his “room” is one of those trying to get back on the right track.

The boy--who, like other Juvenile Hall inmates, must remain anonymous--said he wants to go to college and some day return to Juvenile Hall, as a counselor. “I think I can relate to the kids here and do a good job,” he said.

Hallstrom praised the condition of the room and then advised, “You come back and see me” after college.

Not all inmates in the 334-bed red-brick facility express such a positive attitude.

Standing in line between two buildings that serve as classrooms at Juvenile Hall, a boy with long blond curly hair asked Hallstrom if the watch he was wearing was a Rolex. “You like that (jewelry), do you?” the superintendent asked.

“That’s why we’re in here,” the youth replied.

Because there have been 20 to 57 youths above capacity at Juvenile Hall in recent months, the Orange facility was a major concern Tuesday of the Board of Supervisors, who requested a special commission report on overcrowding at all county facilities that house juveniles.

Hallstrom and Edward M. Clarke, chief deputy probation officer, say Juvenile Hall exceeds its capacity every year, starting in the fall and peaking about February. In a report to the supervisors, Clarke said the population had exceeded the 334 available beds by “20 to 57 minors continuously since Feb. 11.”

So supervisors unanimously requested that the 11-member Orange County Juvenile Justice Commission investigate overcrowding at Juvenile Hall and other county-run juvenile institutions. Commissioners, who inspect the facilities (as do the California Youth Authority and presiding Juvenile Court Judge Betty Lou Lamoreaux), are to report by July 1 on short- and long-term solutions.

“It would be foolhardy for us not to act quickly,” said Supervisor Harriett Wieder in a prepared statement, “to avoid some kind of action against Orange County by the state or the kind of legal quandary we are now facing with our adult detention facilities.” (Orange County has been ordered by a federal court to reduce the inmate population at the main County Jail for men in Santa Ana.)

Mattresses on Floor

Although the overcrowding at Juvenile Hall is minuscule contrasted with Orange County Jail, some youths do have to sleep on four-inch-thick mattresses laid on the floor. And, Clarke says, the problem can only get worse in time.

“We believe, the way things are heading, that each year our overcrowding days will last a little longer and will get particularly bad by 1990,” he said.

The population on Tuesday, when Clarke and Hallstrom permitted a tour of the facility, had dropped below the number of beds.

There were by the latest count 273 boys and 55 girls between the ages of 12 and 18 (there have been some as young as 10 or 11), although the numbers fluctuate. Their offenses run the gamut from misdemeanor petty thefts to murder cases, with two youths in the facility Tuesday charged in homicide cases.

Many of the youths in Juvenile Hall are there awaiting sentencing although about 100 are serving sentences. Those 100 are considered unfit for the options the court has for treating juveniles, such as work time at Los Pinos Forestry Camp near Lake Elsinore or the Joplin Youth Center in Trabuco Canyon.

Some youths still sleep on the floor at the hall in the county complex opposite the City Shopping Mall in Orange because they are segregated according to age, size, type of offense and, in some cases, whether they pose a danger to other inmates. “So we can’t just spread it uniformly throughout the institution,” Hallstrom said. For example, in the B Unit, there were “20-plus-one” inmates for 20 beds, meaning there were 20 at the hall with one in court.

Permanent Complex Planned

Clarke and Hallstrom are hoping the overcrowding, which isn’t a major problem yet, will be relieved by construction of a permanent complex on the 14.5-acre site where the first buildings went up in 1959. The complex would include a larger intake-release center with about 100 beds and permanent structures for Juvenile Court actions instead of the trailers now in use.

“That would be a significant contribution to alleviating our situation,” Clarke said.

When a minor arrives at Juvenile Hall--92% of them in police custody--he or she enters through a security door at the south end of the administration building. Here police officers leave their guns and go through the ritual of booking youths into the facility, finally walking them down to an intake-release area where new arrivals are briefed.

While walking down the corridor, Hallstrom noted that all standing beds have been bolted to the floor. In some cells, platforms have been constructed so that the beds are actually part of the structure.

Eventually, Hallstrom said, all cells will be constructed with platforms, a measure designed to prevent suicide attempts. One youth killed himself in November by turning the bed on its end and hanging himself with a sheet.

In the intake-release unit, Gordon McDowell, supervising probation counselor, oversees 35 inmates. The first item of business for newcomers is an inventory of personal property, which is put into a basket and stored. The youths are strip-searched before they take a shower to ensure that no drugs enter the hall (first-timers in on misdemeanor offenses such as petty theft are only given a hand-pat search).

A briefing on how Juvenile Hall operates follows, covering what their rights are, what’s expected of them, how court sessions work and when parents can visit.

Most newcomers don’t fight the process, but a few are unmanageable, McDowell said. “Sometimes a kid will come in here dusted on PCP and they don’t want to listen to anything. They just want to fight,” he said. “You can talk and talk and talk but sometimes it’s not going to get you anywhere.”

Tied to Bed

In those cases, when deputies have to wrestle a youth to restrain him, he’s tied down in his cell using soft strands of material--tied by the wrists and ankles to the bedposts. “We don’t use shackles or leather restraints,” McDowell said.

In the classrooms, where male and female inmates attend class together, Principal Paul Mills, a former assistant principal at Woodbridge High School in Irvine, said that education isn’t easy with such a student population but that successes are gratifying.

There are a few very talented students, one who recently took his Scholastic Aptitude Test in preparation for college and others who show outstanding skill as artists and athletes. Mills is working on a program to allow students to take their high school equivalency tests inside the hall. Four Juvenile Hall residents earned their diplomas by taking tests last year.

Although his students go back to cells after class, they have the same needs as other youths, he said, adding that sometimes the breakthroughs can be very gratifying. “Sometimes the smallest gains here you can chalk up as real successes with these kids,” he said.

With 10,000 admissions annually, there are only about five escapes, Hallstrom said, almost all ending in recapture. For example, one youth bolted from a group heading to church services a few months ago, scaled a fence and ran across the roof of the facility until he could jump down, scale another fence and escape through the adjoining UCI Medical Center complex.

The youth was recaptured by police five days later at his grandfather’s house. To prevent a recurrence, wire mesh has been installed at the top of the fences.

Although a couple of youths complained that there isn’t enough counseling offered, Hallstrom noted that psychological counselors are available and on call 24 hours a day, probation officers can provide advice and two chaplains--one Protestant and one Catholic--maintain offices in the hall.

One 15-year-old, serving a sentence for petty theft, argued that counseling should be forcibly applied but admitted that life in the Hall had some advantages. “I’m going to school here, earning credits. It’s better than being on the outside, on the streets doing drugs,” he said.