Dear Sheriff Baca:
Human Rights Watch is disturbed to learn that on Friday, June 20, the Sheriff’s Department revoked Javier Stauring’s clearance to minister at all adult county jails. The department initially told a second chaplain, the Rev. Greg Boyle, that his clearance was also revoked, but it appears to have restored Father Boyle’s clearance. These actions came one day after Mr. Stauring and Father Boyle publicly criticized conditions of confinement for youths at the Men’s Central Jail.
According to news accounts, the department withdrew Mr. Stauring’s clearance because it concluded that he had disclosed confidential information about youths in detention. Capt. Ray Leyva is quoted in the June 21 Los Angeles Times, for example, as saying, “I did ask that [Stauring’s] pass be pulled, because I had concerns about the privacy violations. . . . I can’t keep putting the county in the position of someone saying things that violate the confidentiality of people we have in custody.”
Our interviews with the two chaplains and our review of the press coverage leads us to conclude that they have not acted improperly. In their public statements, they have described overall conditions in the jail and expressed their opinions about those conditions in general terms. For example, in a news article published on June 19, the day before the department’s action, Father Boyle was quoted as saying, “I have been to every prison in California, and this is by far the worst.” The same article reports that Mr. Stauring suggested that two recent suicide attempts at the jail “are a direct result of youth routinely being locked in their cells for 23 1/2 hours a day” and urged you to stop the “inhumane practice of incarcerating juveniles” in adult jails.
The articles do identify specific youths and provide details about their cases, but in every case the accounts come from youths themselves or from their family members. Needless to say, youths and their families have every right to speak to the press about their cases.
We appreciate the department’s concern for the privacy of youths in detention, but confidentiality should never be used as a shield from outside scrutiny. The public is served when members of the community are able to view places of detention, speak privately with youths and staff members, and report publicly on their findings.
Simply put, the stated rationale for revoking the chaplains’ clearance does not stand up to scrunity. That fact and the timing of the department’s decision strongly suggest retaliation—that the department revoked the chaplains’ clearance to punish them for their decision to speak publicly about abusive conditions for detained youth. As a matter of policy, it is attacking the wrong problem in the wrong way—when two youths have attempted suicide in the last month and others attest publicly to abusive conditions at the jail, the department’s first priority should be a thorough review of the jail’s practices. As a matter of practice, the department’s actions further isolate youths who have few enough contacts with the outside world, who have come to rely on the chaplains for support and moral guidance, and who will now be denied the benefit of their guidance.
We urge you to reverse the department’s decision and ensure that Mr. Stauring and Father Boyle are allowed to continue to minister to detainees in the county’s jails.
Sincerely,
Michael Bochenek
Counsel
Children’s Rights Division
cc: The Honorable Zev Yaroslavsky
Supervisor, Third District
821 Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration
500 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, CA 90012
By fax: 213 625 7360
