Editorial: Starting over from scratch at the L.A. County Probation Department. Again

It took several years and all his political capital for former Los Angeles County Chief Probation Officer Jerry Powers to do what his predecessors and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors could not or would not do: curb misconduct and even criminal acts committed by sworn staff who were supposed to mentor, not abuse, juveniles in trouble with the law.

Powers did it by blocking promotions for an undisclosed number of wayward deputies — an action he took with only tepid support from a board that craved better relations with the probation employee unions.

He departed under board pressure late last year, but at least he left behind the refreshing notions that probation officers should uphold high professional standards, that only the best should be promoted and that those who abuse minors, break laws or fail to come to work would have their ambitions thwarted.

Now those gains appear to have been wiped out by the stroke of a pen in the hand of Powers’ interim successor, Cal Remington. An experienced probation official, Remington somehow believed he had the authority to strike a deal with the probation officers’ unions to promote more than 50 of those disciplined deputies and to lock in place a clear avenue of advancement even for those disciplined in the future.

It’s especially galling that Remington signed the agreement to loosen the reins on deputies less than a month after an April 24 incident, first reported by the website WitnessLA, in which four probation officers at the Sylmar juvenile hall were allegedly caught on camera beating a 17-year-old.

The supervisors are expressing understandable outrage that their interim chief probation officer acted on such a weighty matter without notifying them, let alone seeking their approval.

Outrage, yes. But surprise? It’s not the first time that the supervisors were taken aback by important matters that moved forward under their noses but, oddly, without their knowledge.

The most noteworthy example may be their discovery in 2014 that the U.S. Department of Justice had for years been discussing with county lawyers and other officials a possible consent decree covering the Sheriff’s Department because of poor mental healthcare in the jails. The board signed on to that agreement last year.

That’s only one disturbing similarity between the Probation Department, which operates juvenile halls and camps, and the Sheriff’s Department, which is still struggling to close the books on a shameful era in which deputies beat adult jail inmates and even visitors, and did so with the assent of their superiors. The multiyear investigation of the jails resulted in criminal convictions, millions of dollars in civil payouts, an early end to the career of Sheriff Lee Baca and, let us hope, sufficient humiliation and reckoning on the part of elected officials to ensure that such problems do not occur again.

Even at that, the Board of Supervisors continues to preside over a civil service system that undermines current Sheriff Jim McDonnell — and the county’s revolving door of chief probation officers — by too readily reinstating deputies whom they fired for misconduct. That situation may change; the board is awaiting a study, ordered months ago, on how to overhaul civil service.

At least the sheriff is independently elected, which meant that Baca (now awaiting criminal trial), and not the supervisors, bore ultimate accountability for the jails scandal.

The chief probation officer, by contrast, reports directly to the board. If the supervisors did not direct Remington to enter into the agreement to soften discipline — and they apparently did not — it is fair to wonder what management signals they inadvertently sent, or failed to send, that allowed him to believe he was doing the right thing.

The board has ambitious plans for a wholesale reinvention of the Probation Department and is on the verge of hiring a new chief to put them in place. But instead of inheriting a department whose employee misconduct is under control, Powers’ and Remington’s successor will walk into a world where the employee unions are allowed to call the shots — unless, that is, the board is able to invalidate the agreement.

The supervisors can justifiably blame Remington for this particular probation problem. While they’re at it, though, they should spare a few moments for a look in the mirror and a candid assessment of their own inability to properly oversee the Probation Department, and to figure out what to do to clean up a mess they helped make.

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