By Taylor Walker, Witness LA, June 15, 2019.
At Los Angeles County’s Central Juvenile Hall, the largest of the county’s three juvenile halls, 93 percent of its youth residents have open mental health cases.
At Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Sylmar, CA, the percentage of kids with open mental health cases is at 96 percent, according to the most recent report submitted to the board of LA County Supervisors in late April by Jonathan Sharin, MD, the head of the county’s Department of Mental Health.
The percentage at LA County’s third youth camp, Las Padrinos, which is in the process of being shut down, was at 85 percent, according to the report’s numbers.
In case you’ve not yet done the math, this means that overall 91.3 percent of the youth in LA County’s juvenile halls have been diagnosed with some kind of significant mental health challenge.
The DMH report explains that these percentages point to a range of things, including dealing with severe mental disorders, particularly trauma-based disorders, and/or substance use disorders.
The same youth may also suffer from suicidal thoughts. They may be “self-injurious,” or display “aggressive behavior,” which can be made worse by a jail-like environment, according to Sharin. They are likely to have experienced “sexual exploitation,” homelessness, and other major traumas that can exacerbate “underlying mental disorders,” or create new ones.
Comments (0)