Coronavirus concerns spur Los Angeles school officials to seek youth offenders’ release
Los Angeles County education leaders are calling for nonviolent juvenile offenders to be immediately released from youth custody in response to the coronavirus crisis, officials announced this week.
The emergency resolution by Los Angeles County’s board of education Wednesday “to protect the educational future of students” would need court approval by state law. It is unclear how many youth detained in the county’s probation halls and camps would be freed if a judge granted a release order.
In the resolution, the board calls for the release of student detainees held on nonviolent offenses, those who have compromised immune systems or underlying health issues, those close to the end of their confinement and those who do not pose a danger to themselves or others.
“We are going on record as another level of advocacy to do what’s right to protect our students,” Debra Duardo, Los Angeles County Office of Education superintendent, told The Sacramento Bee on Thursday. “We want to see what happens. We put our position out there and we will continue to advocate.”
The Los Angeles County Office of Education is responsible for the education of youth held in the county’s camps and halls. The office and the county’s probation department serve some 600 youth in juvenile system high schools, including nearly 300 who await trial, officials said.
Though Duardo said no students in custody have contracted COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, education officials fear the virus could make its way into the juvenile hall population.
Already, some adults who have access to students in youth custody have tested positive for COVID-19, officials state in the resolution. The county has reported 7,955 confirmed cases and 223 deaths as of noon Thursday, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Health.
“Our resolution aims to protect these young people and their ability to succeed in school,” James Cross, board president, told Southern California-based City News Service.
Thousands of adult inmates and detainees in California’s jails and prisons have been released from local, state and federal custody in recent weeks on fears of the virus’ spread behind bars.
Those fears have become reality in jails and prisons across the country from New York to Chicago to Los Angeles’ neighbor, Orange County, where two sheriff’s deputies tested positive for the virus and more than 500 inmates were deemed eligible for release as medically vulnerable, the Orange County Register reported last week.
In Sacramento, a deputy public defender believed to have contracted the virus after a visit to the county’s main jail was isolating at home, public defender’s officials said, prompting federal defenders to demand the release of all federal prisoners held in Sacramento County custody.
Earlier Thursday, a federal judge ordered the release from Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers, including a center in Yuba County. The detainees’ ages and medical conditions made them especially vulnerable to the virus, attorneys for the detainees said in a statement.
“The stakes for the release of detained persons is at an all-time high as the threat of the COVID-19 outbreak places them at an elevated risk of serious ailments or death,” William Freeman, senior counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Northern California, said in a statement.
This story was originally published April 9, 2020 at 6:13 PM with the headline "Coronavirus concerns spur Los Angeles school officials to seek youth offenders’ release."
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