By Jason Henry
Los Angeles Daily News
LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles County has partially reopened Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Sylmar and moved 39 youths from the troubled Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall to the facility without permission from the state regulatory board that closed Nidorf in 2023.
Nidorf has not passed a new inspection from the Board of State and Community Corrections since its shuttering and, under state law, is prohibited from being used to house the type of detainees that Los Angeles County has now moved in.
“The BSCC did not approve the move,” said Jana Sanford-Miller, the spokesperson for the BSCC. “The Board has not changed its determination that the juvenile hall is unsuitable for the housing of predisposed youth.”
All 39 youths moved to Nidorf qualify as predisposition, meaning they are accused of crimes but have not had their cases adjudicated. The L.A. County Probation Department has determined that those youth have a chance of ending up in the Barry J. Nidorf Secure Youth Treatment Facility, which houses post-disposition youth in the same building, and have argued that running a juvenile hall alongside the SYTF will allow it to provide programs and services designed around an expected longer stay within the system.
“We notified the BSCC prior to the moves that we were making them in compliance and furtherance of the court-ordered depopulation plan, requesting an inspection,” said Vicky Waters, the spokesperson for the L.A. County Probation Department. “We continue to work with them.”
She did not respond to questions asking whether the county believed the move is legally allowed.
During a meeting of the county’s Probation Oversight Commission on Monday, Sept. 15 , Probation Chief Guillermo Viera Rosa told the panel the “BSCC is aware, but it has not approved.”
Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall was closed after it was found out of compliance with the state’s minimum standards in nine areas, including staffing, use of force and safety checks. The SYTF, not included in the closure order, has continued to operate at the site since then.
The county reopened Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall to take the juveniles displaced by the closures of Barry J. Nidorf and Central Juvenile halls in 2023. But it too has been declared “unsuitable” as a result of the same staffing shortages and was ordered to close in December. But the county refused to comply and argued it had no alternatives left.
The continued use of Los Padrinos ultimately was challenged in court by the county Public Defender’s Office, and, in May 2025 , a judge ordered the county to “depopulate” Los Padrinos under a county-developed plan that would shuffle about 100 youth out of Los Padrinos and to other facilities in an effort to bring Los Padrinos’ population down to a more manageable level for the available staff.
The move to Barry J. Nidorf is part of that plan.
The court filing outlining the plan states that there may be delays to the proposed timeline due to “BSCC’s scheduling and approval” and states that it will ensure “compliance with BSCC’s standards.” L.A. County’s initial defiance last year revealed that the BSCC effectively has no teeth and was not granted any powers by the Legislature to enforce its closure orders.
“The department is trying to depopulate and they’re not waiting to move kids like they used to before,” said Eduardo Mundo, the chair of the Probation Oversight Commission. “They may be confident that they have met the standards, that they have done everything they were asked to do, and it is just a matter of timing.”
The Probation Department is making a real effort to reduce the population at Los Padrinos, but it is stuck between a rock and a hard place, Mundo said. It is required to carry out the court-approved depopulation plan quickly, while also facing scrutiny and sometimes competing requirements from the BSCC and California Department of Justice , he said.
“You still have the reality that there’s an institution that needs to be run and there is no alternative to where you take these kids,” Mundo said.
The county opted not to wait for the BSCC’s approval after learning Nidorf had not passed a recent inspection.
In July, the BSCC announced that it had conducted a new inspection at Barry J. Nidorf Secure Youth Treatment Facility — the only occupied portion of the building at the time — and found that the juvenile hall “remains unsuitable for the confinement of youth.” The inspection found that six out of the nine items of noncompliance had been remedied, but that staff was not properly observing youth while performing safety checks, was keeping youth confined to their rooms in violation of regulations, and that staff did not have proper training related to uses of force and the deployment of chemical agents.
“It is clear that it would not be appropriate to move additional youth from Los Padrinos to Barry J. Nidorf while the facility is unable to meet minimum standards,” said board Chair Linda Penner in a statement at the time. “The ongoing and systemic failures at Los Padrinos and Barry J. Nidorf are unacceptable.”
The BSCC removed a vote on the suitability of using Barry J. Nidorf as a juvenile hall from its agenda that same month.
“As such, staff could not recommend that the full Board find Nidorf juvenile hall suitable when the SYTF was not meeting the Board’s minimum standards,” Sanford-Miller said.
The county quickly submitted a “corrective action plan” outlining how it would resolve those deficiencies and the BSCC approved it on Aug. 5 .
Under state law, a reinspection is necessary to verify that the corrective action plan has been implemented before the BSCC can determine whether the facility is “suitable” again.
Nine days later, however, Probation Chief Viera Rosa notified the BSCC in writing that he was reopening Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall and would not wait for the reinspection, according to the letter.
“This activation is occurring in alignment with and in furtherance of the court ordered depopulation plan, which requires the relocation of youth from Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall,” Viera Rosa wrote. “While we must comply with the Court’s directive, the Department remains committed to working in partnership with BSCC to ensure full compliance with the previously found non-compliant items.”
The BSCC’s reinspection eventually occurred in early September and that review is still ongoing today. The regulatory board already plans to conduct a “full comprehensive inspection of the juvenile hall once enough data has been established to evaluate the full operations of the facility.”
“While the BSCC fully respects the decision of the court to approve the depopulation timeline, it would be irresponsible for the Board to prematurely declare the facility suitable,” Sanford-Miller stated.
The county’s decision to reopen Nidorf without approval may end up being used against it in an upcoming court battle.
The California Department of Justice is attempting to have L.A. County’s juvenile facilities placed under the control of a receivership. In a recent court filing, the Office of the Attorney General stated that it had learned L.A. County had taken an action — redacted from the filing — “despite BSCC’s order finding BJN unsuitable for predisposition youth.”
The filing, submitted under seal to the court prior to the county’s official announcement of the move to Barry J. Nidorf, lists a series of redacted examples of the juvenile halls continuing to face “overdoses, high levels of violence, unmet medical needs and serious habitability issues.”
A hearing on the proposed receivership is scheduled for Oct. 10.
©2025 MediaNews Group, Inc. Visit dailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.