Complaints about a Central Valley juvenile hall began reaching California disability rights advocates in 2019. That launched years of investigations and a public report in 2023 citing excessive use of force, overreliance on isolation and insufficient mental health services at the youth facility.
Now, a settlement between Disability Rights Advocates and Disability Rights California and the county’s probation department resolves claims that could bring improvements to the Kings County Juvenile Center and reduce rates of detention and recidivism.
The settlement agreement was filed in U.S. District Court in Fresno on Sept. 30.
Dan Macallair, executive director of the nonprofit Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, helped investigate the facility and toured the site in Hanford, California.
“The way kids were treated, the routine manner that their kids were incarcerated by the probation department was, in my mind, just inexcusable,” he said.
Under last month’s settlement agreement, the department is required to transform the detention center into a “less prison-like environment” and reduce use of force, isolation, restraint and seclusion practices. Necessary improvements must be tracked, and the county must create more reentry and diversion programs that provide alternatives to detention.
Over the next six months, both sides will work on a three-year plan to implement the changes. An independent expert from the Council of Juvenile Justice Administrators, a national nonprofit that focuses on improving justice systems, will work with the county.
“It’s something that we’re optimistic about,” said Amelia Evard, an attorney at Disability Rights Advocates. “The changes that the county has committed to, we think, are going to make a big difference, and it’s going to be informed by that expert review.”
In an email to The Imprint, a county spokesperson said the probation department is “deeply committed to enhancing the culture” in its juvenile facility through “ongoing training for staff that promotes balanced decision making, improves conflict management skills, strengthens rapport building with youth and young adults, and expands awareness related to mental health, substance use, and adolescent brain development.”
The department’s Detention Risk Assessment Instrument will ensure that only young people who pose a significant safety threat will be admitted to the facility.
“We are committed to providing the guidance, support, and resources that help youth build brighter futures,” the spokesperson said.
Years of concerns
The coed, 65-bed Kings County Juvenile Center houses youth ages 12 to 25 who are awaiting court hearings or are serving their sentences. Most youth held in the facility have been accused of serious or violent offenses, including murder, use of a firearm and sex crimes.
Under California law, youth have a right to rehabilitation, and county juvenile halls must maintain a “safe and supportive homelike environment.”
But according to the disability rights groups’ 2023 report on the conditions of confinement, youth in the Kings County facility were subjected to body slamming and overuse of pepper spray, handcuffs and leg shackles. The report also said probation staff “often” punished youth by isolating them from their peers and making them sit on a hard chair in a hallway outside their cells for extended periods of time. According to the disability rights advocates, this practice seems to be a tactic to get around state law, which restricts youth from being held in room confinement for more than four hours and cannot be used as “punishment, coercion, convenience, or retaliation by staff.”
At the time, the county issued a statement agreeing that “immediate action” is needed, and vowing to develop improvement plans with the advocates.
Disabled teens are overrepresented in juvenile detention centers, Evard said, adding that in the Kings County facility, they “face increased discipline for their disability-related behaviors.” In interviews, youth with intellectual disabilities told disability rights advocates they had been “provoked and degraded by staff,” and that “staff often failed to stop bullying by peers.”
During a 2022 inspection, employees identified more than 80% of youth detained at the time — 22 out of 27 — as needing mental health services, according to the report. But youth who were interviewed by advocates expressed a need for more individual counseling and complained about waiting weeks between appointments.
Young people on suicide watch sometimes spent up to two days in solitary confinement, the Board of State and Community Corrections reported. And according to Disability Rights Advocates, “Suicidal ideation is common; staff respond by handcuffing youth and isolating them in a holding cell for long periods until mental health staff are available, which adds to their feelings of despair and isolation.”
Advocates also found the Kings County Probation Department detained youth in its locked facility “at a far higher rate than comparable counties and California as a whole.” The county rate of approximately 12% is twice the state’s 6% average.
Advocates also raised concerns about a lack of efforts to help youth succeed in their communities before arrest or upon release, such as alternatives to detention and reentry programs.
Macallair said if the settlement agreement is acted upon, this will change.
“What I’d like to see is, when lawsuits are brought, a greater emphasis on reducing the number of kids actually going into the system,” he said, “and they did build that into the settlement.”
To ensure that, Macallair said juvenile facilities need “layers of monitoring” to hold them accountable, including state and local inspections, unannounced visits, and monitoring from county juvenile justice commissions and outside agencies.
Haydee Barahona is a California Local News Fellow covering child welfare and youth justice for The Imprint, and a regular contributor to The Intersection. She is based in Bakersfield, California. Contact her at hbarahona@imprintnews.org.
The Imprint is a partner of The Intersection and CVJC.