LA County Places Moratorium on Billing Families for Juvenile Detention

On February 13, the Probation Department in Los Angeles County announced a moratorium on billing parents for the incarceration costs of their children, as urged by Human Rights Watch and the LA-based organization Youth Justice Coalition. The moratorium affects thousands of families and foster families, most of them poor, who have been affected by aggressive billing policies. Human Rights Watch and the Youth Justice Coalition galvanized public support around this issue by publicly highlighting the harm to families. We wrote a letter to LA County detailing problematic and illegal billing practices and testified before an LA County Supervisors meeting, raising concerns about flaws in the billing process. Three days later, the department announced a moratorium on billing, saying it had decided to review department practices. According to the Los Angeles Times, a commission investigating complaints was “aghast to find out these families were going into debt and having liens put against their homes.” Thousands of young people are affected by LA County’s policies, and those policies are often emulated by other states.