Tension High in O.C.’s Jammed Juvenile Hall : Justice: Youths forced to double up in small cells. Probation Department hopes for help from Measure J.

ORANGE — Every morning at Juvenile Hall, 15-year-old William gets out of bed at a quarter to 6, takes the two green plastic-covered mattress pads his roommate uses to sleep on the floor, and stacks them neatly on his own bed in a tiny cell designed for one.

Like the county’s adult jail facilities, Juvenile Hall is overcrowded. Although it was designed to hold a maximum of 314 youths, the population frequently reaches 416.

An explosion in the number of youths committing crimes in the county has meant doubling up inmates in small cells and temporarily putting classes in lounge areas. The result, officials say, is increasing tension among the staff members and their young charges and a greater potential for violence.

William, who has been in and out of Juvenile Hall since age 13, is awaiting trial on auto theft charges. His last name is being withheld because he is a minor.

“I’ve been in units with three people to a room,” he said. “You can’t really do as much (of the group activities), and it’s easier to agitate the group because they’re so tired of being squished together.”

Like Sheriff Brad Gates, who oversees the five-jail adult system, the officials who run the juvenile detention system are anxiously awaiting the results of the May 14 Measure J election.

If county voters approve it, the half-cent sales-tax increase will provide an average of $343 million annually for 30 years for criminal justice facilities. The Probation Department, which runs the juvenile detention system, is one of a number of agencies that have applied for Measure J funds.

Chief Probation Officer Michael Schumacher estimates, based on projections of the growth in juvenile offenders, that the 624-bed juvenile system will need 160 more beds by 1995.

Funds, however, are so scarce that even a 60-bed expansion already under way at the sprawling 20-acre Juvenile Hall will be in jeopardy if the system does not get an infusion of Measure J money.

“It’s supposed to open at the end of May, but we don’t even have the money to operate it,” Schumacher said of the expansion.

Officials who run the juvenile facilities say their own problem of overcrowding has been overshadowed by the controversy about whether to build a 6,720-bed regional jail in Gypsum Canyon just east of Anaheim Hills.

And the problem is felt most keenly at Juvenile Hall.

Because it is the most secure of the county’s four juvenile facilities, “the Hall” houses youths who have committed serious offenses as well as those who have just been apprehended or are awaiting court hearings or sentencing. A growing percentage of those youths are being accused of violent crimes and major thefts, and a majority of those are gang members or have drug problems, Schumacher said.

Stephanie Lewis, Juvenile Hall director, said a recent day was typical: The facility was holding 314 youths between 12 and 17 years old, 31 of whom were girls. Of the total, 21 were accused of crimes so serious--such as murder and attempted murder--that they were to be tried as adults.

In 1987, the San Francisco-based Youth Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union brought a class-action lawsuit against the county over the overcrowding and other conditions of confinement at Juvenile Hall, notable among them the types of restraints used on youths and so-called “rubber rooms” used to isolate youths having discipline problems.

Superior Court Judge Linda H. McLaughlin ruled last June that although there was overcrowding at Juvenile Hall, the problem had not yet become serious enough to be considered a constitutional violation. Her ruling on the other charges, however, forced major changes in disciplinary procedures there.

Mark I. Soler, an attorney with the San Francisco Youth Law Center, which brought the suit on behalf of several detainees in 1987, said conditions at Juvenile Hall have improved considerably since the ruling.

“There are juvenile halls (throughout the state) that are more crowded,” he said, “and I also think that their change in administration (since the lawsuit was initiated) brought some major improvements. There are some very caring and very good staff people who work there now.”

But the effort to control the population has come at a price for juvenile authorities here. Last December, Schumacher announced that Juvenile Hall would no longer take misdemeanor offenders unless they are known gang members. In addition, it generally will not accept youths who are 18, even if they are brought in on warrants in connection with incidents committed while the youths were still minors. And staff members are stricter about who gets booked into Juvenile Hall.

For example, said Kathy J. Goto, assistant director of Juvenile Hall, the facility will not allow officers to book all youths who are arrested in a stolen automobile.

“We make them charge all of them, or we only take the ones that will be charged with the crime,” she said, “because we don’t have room here.”

Further, in a program similar to one instituted in the adult jail system, probation officials will release some youths before their sentences are finished in order to free up space.

Probation officials say it is a policy they don’t like enforcing, however.

“The bottom line is, they’ve been given a sentence as a consequence of their crime, and we can’t hold them to those consequences because we just don’t have the beds to keep them here their full term,” Lewis said.

Still, even with the new policies, there is rarely an open bed at Juvenile Hall, a situation that tests the skills of the staff of 216 counselors and supervisors, Lewis and Goto said.

Juvenile Hall itself is a series of red brick and beige stucco buildings organized in different wings, situated on The City Drive in Orange, near the Theo Lacy Branch Jail. The units of living quarters are grouped around lounges, and there is a school operated by the Orange County Department of Education.

In one schoolroom, teen-agers are quietly pecking at computer keyboards. In another, youths are making 13-bean soup on old home economics class equipment that includes a mirror over the stove. Those who do not feel well are allowed to stay in their rooms in the dormitory section.

The boys are dressed in jail-issued dark blue pants and navy blue T-shirts and black tennis shoes. The girls wear light blue T-shirts, navy shorts and white tennis shoes.

The doors between wings, rooms and cells are always locked. There is one staff member assigned to every 10 youths during waking hours. When small groups move from one activity to another, the youths must walk single-file with their hands behind their backs as a security measure.

After classes, the youths attend counseling sessions or their court hearings, or they see counselors, psychiatrists, attorneys or visitors. Visitors are allowed three times a week. Counselors from Planned Parenthood, Alcoholics Anonymous and other groups frequently come to give talks.

The youths can watch television when the lounges are not being used as temporary classrooms or lecture halls.

But always there is the tension of too many youths in a small place, and the growing number of gang members coming into the system compounds the situation, Lewis said.

“We have members of rival gangs here, and we try to separate them, but we don’t have enough areas to keep conflicts from happening,” she said.

Julie and Shannon, both 17, said they became friends at the hall, although they belong to different gangs. As they sat in one of the lounges between assigned housecleaning chores, they talked about the conflicts that rival gangs present. Their last names are being withheld because they are minors.

“The other girls are scared of us, because they know we’ve been here a long time,” Shannon said. Crude amateur tattoos of crucifixes and names adorn her face, legs and arms.

Shannon, who said she has been taking drugs since she was 11, has been in some sort of institution for all but about six months since then. She has been at the hall for more than a month, awaiting a transfer to a California Youth Authority facility after she ran away from a group home in North Hollywood. She has served time at the hall and at the Van Horn Youth Center in Riverside.

“They don’t think they can help me here anymore,” she said.

She said her mother also has a drug problem and is now in a recovery program after serving time in prison. Three of her four sisters live in foster homes. Her grandmother is now in prison, and her grandfather was recently released--although his girlfriend just escaped from prison.

The staff at the hall, she said, tries hard to counsel the youths and show them there are alternatives to a life of crime.

“If you don’t have a family, this is like your family,” she said about the staff and other inmates. “. . . They try to make us feel stronger and encourage us. But they can’t really tell us what to do if they didn’t go through it like we did.

“We may act like we’re happy here, but we’re not.”

Julie said she has been in trouble with the law since age 13 for writing graffiti and truancy.

“I was in a gang, and when you’re a gang member, you’re known,” she said.

Julie is now awaiting trial as an adult on charges of grand theft auto and armed robbery. She said she and a girlfriend got high on PCP and stole a car from a woman at gunpoint at a shopping center. They sped onto the Santa Ana Freeway, she said, but were caught by police, who were just behind them.

She and her mother are not speaking to each other right now, she said, because her mother wanted her to choose between the gangs and her family.

Her father is “on the run from his parole officers,” she said. “He shoots up. He’s been in state prison. He’s just messed up. His whole side of the family is messed up.”

Both Julie and Shannon said that once a gang member, always a gang member, even in the hall, because the others will not let you leave that life behind you.

But other youths at the hall say that is not true.

“Everybody can get out,” said William, the 15-year-old awaiting trial on auto theft charges. “Those who say they don’t are just using that as an excuse.”

William said he has strong family ties--he talks with his mother and brothers just about every other night from one of the many pay phones at Juvenile Hall that can be used to make collect calls.

He is in this time for violating his court-imposed curfew and because he faces the auto theft charge. He is pleading not guilty. If he is convicted, he said, he could be sent to the California Youth Authority.

When he was 10 and 11, he began skipping school, he said, and that eventually brought him to the attention of probation officers.

“I guess you could say I wasn’t scared yet when I first got into trouble,” he said. “I am now. I don’t want to go to CYA. It ain’t a joke anymore.”

William said he is determined to change his life. But he knows the changes are up to him, and that making them means resisting peer pressure, even within the hall.

“I’m tired of coming in and out all the time,” he said.

Measure J Proposals

If voters approve Measure J, the half-cent sales tax increase, on Tuesday, the Orange County Regional Justice Facilities Commission will adopt a master plan that will map out how the tax revenue will be spent. The commission has asked for project proposals that fit the category of regional justice facilities. Here’s a rundown on the proposals: * Orange County wants Measure J funds to acquire land and build a 6,720-bed regional jail in Gypsum Canyon. The cost, excluding operations, is estimated at about $1 billion. This is the most controversial of all the proposals, and the reason some in the county oppose Measure J. * Orange County also has submitted a proposal to add about 160 beds to the current 624-bed juvenile detention facilities. The costs could range from $100,000 to $180,000 per bed. Also, the county wants funds to help build and operate a facility for emotionally disturbed youthful offenders. * Santa Ana has submitted a proposal to build a 240-bed jail for suspects arrested by city police. Construction of such a jail would save the city from $3 million to $4 million a year in a $154 fee that the county will begin charging for every inmate booked into the county jails. * Irvine has submitted a proposal to expand a youth shelter and the nearby Orange County Harbor Municipal Court in Newport Beach. * Brea has submitted a proposal to build a youth-service bureau within a new community center already being planned. The center would be a place for probation officers and others to work with youths in trouble and to ease overcrowding in the county’s juvenile facilities. * Huntington Beach has submitted a $1.5-million proposal for additional jail beds and remodeling of its existing City Jail, which has been short 36 beds for nearly two decades, and also to turn an old house into a home for runaway youths. * Newport Beach has submitted a $400,000 proposal to build its own juvenile hall. Police now keep arrested minors in the lobby of the police station before they are transferred elsewhere. * Anaheim, whose City Council has passed a resolution opposing Measure J, has requested $1.3 million as reimbursement for its newly built, 140-bed City Jail. The city is also asking for funds to expand the North Orange County Municipal Court facilities in Fullerton. * Laguna Beach wants to build a jail to hold inmates for 48 hours until they can be transferred elsewhere or sent to court. * La Habra wants to expand its City Jail staff. * Fullerton and Buena Park want to expand existing jail facilities. * San Clemente wants two new Superior Courts and a Juvenile Hall in the South County area, in addition to funds to expand its City Jail.