JUVENILE JUSTICE IN `PIT OF TROUBLE' FEDS MAY SEEK OVERSIGHT OF L.A. SYSTEM.

Byline: TROY ANDERSON Staff Writer

The U.S. Department of Justice is close to seeking federal oversight of Los Angeles County's juvenile justice system, which has been plagued for years by violence and other problems, county authorities said Tuesday.

Representatives of the department, which has been monitoring the system since 2000, met with Chief Probation Officer Robert Taylor last week and expressed alarm about excessive use of force, an education crisis and high conviction rates in the three juvenile halls and 19 probation camps.

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said county government is vulnerable to lawsuits over ``this bottomless pit of trouble.''

In a memo to supervisors, Taylor ``says we may be going into a consent decree,'' Supervisor Gloria Molina said. ``We need to take some very dramatic steps because there are a lot of issues outstanding. The (20) issues left on the table ... are probably the most significant ones.''

A major issue is the high conviction rate for youths held by the county.

The supervisors acknowledged concern that nearly all of the children accused of crimes are convicted, contributing to what some call a consensus in the legal community that thousands of children are getting poor legal representation and many may be wrongfully convicted and imprisoned.

``The overwhelming majority of kids that come into the probation system, accused of having done something wrong, end up getting adjudicated as having done that thing wrong,'' Yaroslavsky said. ``There is a very small percentage of kids who are found to have not done something wrong.''

In 2003, the most recent year for which full data were available, 99 percent of the 31,081 youths accused of delinquency were referred to the Probation Department, according to a March report by the Children's Planning Council. Charges were filed on 80 percent of these children, or 24,781, who were arrested. And of the 30,463 youths with juvenile court dispositions in 2003, nearly two-thirds were declared wards of the court.

Cyn Yamashiro, a law professor and director of the Center for Juvenile Law and Policy at Loyola Law School, said the center is considering filing a federal lawsuit against the county.

The suit would challenge the constitutionality of county policy to only pay $320 per case to panel attorneys who provide legal defense for about 13,000 youths a year. Yamashiro said the sum doesn't pay the costs of preparing a proper defense, including investigative services.

``There are a lot of good lawyers out there who have tried to do it (for $320) but don't feel they are ethically able to do that and have left the system,'' Yamashiro said.

The renewed concerns about the county's massive juvenile-justice system come as Justice Department investigators chronicle a laundry list of problems in the system, ranging from understaffing, with rising violence and rioting, to failures to follow medical and mental health guidelines.

The number of fights at the camps increased 36 percent from 1,934 in 2004 to 2,630 last year. At the juvenile halls, the number of fights increased by 29 percent from 2,108 to 2,738, according to department statistics.

And from 2003 to 2005, the use of various restraints by probation officers increased from none to 75. In the same period, the use of force by probation officers increased from 1,535 to 1,672 incidents.

Taylor said the department is due to be in full compliance with the Justice Department's requirements by August 2007.

troy.anderson(at)dailynews.com

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