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Media Contact: Probation Media
prob.news@probation.lacounty.gov, (562) 315-3388
For Immediate Release:
May 24, 2023
LA COUNTY INTERIM PROBATION CHIEF ORDERS ALL DEPARTMENT OFFICERS TO SERVE ONE SHIFT A MONTH AT JUVENILE HALLS
LOS ANGELES, CA (May 24, 2023) — Los Angeles County Interim Probation Chief Guillermo Viera Rosa today said he will impose an order requiring all 3,000 sworn peace officers in the Department to serve at least one shift a month in the juvenile halls.
Viera Rosa said his order, which will go into effect June 1, will increase staffing at the juvenile halls “by ten-fold, flooding them with the personnel needed to reverse the chronic staffing shortages that have been at the heart of our problems there.”
Viera Rosa’s order comes a day after the Board of State and Community Corrections voted to close down Central and Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Halls within 60 days, or by late July. The BSCC has blamed chronic staffing shortages for a list of deficiencies rendering the halls “unsuitable.”
Even before the BSCC vote, however, the Board of Supervisors had approved Probation’s plan to consolidate pre-disposition youth operations from Central and Nidorf into a renovated Los Padrinos campus in Downey. That move will be completed within the BSCC’s 60-day deadline.
In announcing his departmentwide order today, Viera Rosa told officers and staff at the beleaguered Central and Nidorf halls that the BSCC decision was “no reflection on you. You are the reason we have been able to operate these outdated facilities for as long as we have. “A solid core of you have shown up every day to perform your duties with dignity and integrity under the most difficult of circumstances. You have been working double shifts, day in and day out, because you believe in the life-changing mission of Probation.”
Viera Rosa’s announcement comes a week after he ordered the Department’s executive staff to pull a monthly line shift in the juvenile halls as well. Viera Rosa served his shift from 10 pm Saturday to 10 am Sunday at Nidorf.
Declaring the staffing shortage an “emergency,” Viera Rosa told the department that his new order “goes beyond numbers.
“It’s about solidarity and promoting a culture of professionalism,” he wrote.
“I believe having everyone serve one shift a month in the juvenile halls is an excellent way for all of us to show support for, provide aid to and ensure the safety of our besieged and exhausted fellow officers as we turn the page to Los Padrinos.”
County construction crews are working two shifts daily, from 6 am to 1 am daily, to prepare Los Padrinos within the BSCC’s 60-day timeline — or until July 24.
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