KTLA News: "Sybil Brand advocates for improving conditions in juvenile detention centers" (1974)

But what we really need is a new juvenile hall. That's what we really need. >> Yes. >> And I don't say that the board of supervisors have the money to do it, but if they can't find the money, why can't they put a bond issue on and do something? because this place is not the proper place for our children. >> Yes. How long have you as your commission been uh reviewing these conditions in juvenile hall and in the camps? >> This particular commission I'm on now. Yes. 15 years. >> 15 years. >> And the other one 18. >> How long have you been uh submitting reports saying that corrections have to be made along the lines you're suggesting here today? >> Over 27 years. >> 27 years. Do you know what happens to your reports after they're made? >> Yes, I do. >> What happens to them? >> They don't have time to read them. I might say at the outset uh a couple of you have filled out the forms indicating that you want to testify. These hearings are going to be open to anyone who wants to testify and we have blank forms up here in the front of the room, Juvenile Hall. and marching right across the street from juvenile hall into the county jail with their caps and gowns on. Outstanding cartoon. A serious comment upon what is happening in our juvenile justice system. Altogether too, isn't it civil? >> It certainly is. You'll have to excuse my voice. I have litis. >> All right, we've got >> I'm civil brand now. Supervisor, I have written my statement so that I be accurate in what I'm trying to tell you. >> Okay, fine. >> All right. Under the conditions for detention of juvenile offenders now existing, any plan of or hope for rehabilitation becomes increasingly impossible. Our juvenile hall, as a matter of fact, is increasingly becoming the breeding ground for serious crime. This is due to two factors. The first and most urgent factor is the overcrowding of the institution. The main hope of juvenile rehabilitation lies in the way first offenders are handled. When as at present they are thrown together with second and third time offenders, they come under the domination and the influence of these hardcore wards of the court. The only cure I see is the separation of first offenders from repeaters and the mentally disturbed. A good many, perhaps a majority of these first offenders can be rehabilitated, no matter what the cost. This is cheaper in the long run. And this result can be achieved only by providing a separate facility for first offenders, keeping them apart from more hardened offenders and the mentally disturbed, which should be also separated. This is our only hope. The harmful effect of throwing all classes of delinquents together can result only in a growing increase in juvenile crime. Criminals breed not only crime, but more criminals. And if newcomers on the other hand most of the I'm wrong and are forced into association with hardcore delinquents they are bound thereby to become infected by they learn the methods of their more seasoned associates. For that reason for the sake of the community a separate facility to house first offenders and mentally disturbed has become a crucial necessity. Aside from the fact that our present detention facilities are already notoriously overcrowded, rehabilitation cannot be accomplished by separation alone and most certainly not by the curative method now employed. I refer here to the methods of educating or re-educating those offenders now held in detention. Booked learning, the teaching of purely academic subjects, does not appeal to these offenders. Most of them are school dropouts, truents, and runaways. They are indifferent to the studies offered them in the schools they have attended. They are equally unresponsive to these subjects by the teachers in penal institutions. As a result, they come out of detention no different than when they went in. And because they have no constructive learning of any sort, they are useless to the outside community on their release. They have developed no skills whereby they can become useful or make their own living. So a reversion to crime is virtually inevit inevitable to enjoy and seem willing to learn. And when they acquire skills in these crafts, they have the possibility on release of some kind of constructive work to look forward to. Returning them to school is feudal, but turning them into wage earners is a hopeful possibility. This takes a different kind of teacher than the county board of education has. They are the noncredentialed and know how to handle this type of child. What worries me is the child that is not and I don't mean by not being normal but there are many children that are very highrung and they need special attention. They should not be put in with these other children. This is sad. >> Present them u to any group other than the board of supervisors to try to get action. >> Everybody gets them. The everybody that's connected with juveniles and every way all the board of supervisors, Art Will's office, they all get them. And I know that the board of supervisors have been terribly, terribly busy. But I do know also that whenever I ask for a hearing with any one of them, I have the privilege of talking to them and they are very interested in what I tell them. But unfortunately, they're so busy with so many other things, they don't get to read everything until probably it's too late. >> Well, what you're saying, any of the changes made that uh the board of supervisors ordered, I haven't had a chance to make my own inspection yet. I went the last time I went to the board member was I told them about any of these places but the after I got through talking to you were not here a group uh from the mechanical department down there fixing things that we've been screaming about for a long time like welding boiler making co cosmetology horseshoeing auto mechanics plumbing or hilly but surely an effort is being made in this direction through the dedicated work of Mrs. Civil Brand and the Vocational Training and Inspection Commission of Los Angeles County. With the help of