Examining Prison Conditions for Minors in Los Angeles

Human Rights Watch and the Los Angeles Young Advocates inspected the Los Angeles County Men's Central Jail on May 14. The jail holds between thirty and fifty youths under the age of eighteen, twice as many youths as the rest of California's adult pretrial detention facilities combined. Youths in the juvenile module are generally locked in single cells with little or nothing to do for twenty-three-and-a-half hours each day, with thirty minutes each day to shower, place telephone calls, and walk along the corridor outside the cells.