On June 7, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors will vote on a new motion co-authored by Supervisors Mark Ridley-Thomas and Janice Hahn, that, if passed, will reinstate the fundingfor the long-planned and much-anticipated Probation Oversight Commission or POC,that was slashedat last weeks board meeting.

(We wrote here about last weeks budget-slashing, and about the importance of funding the POC.)

Then, over the weekend, WitnessLA received a copy of a newly-filed complaint against LA County, which described a teenage boy who was in one of probations juvenile hallswhen he was allegedly forced against his will, and without his parents knowledge, into an extremely unusual form of treatment, by various medical professionals who work inside probations youth facilities.

The story is an alarming one, and it illustrates one more timewhy so many youth advocates and othersbelieve that civilian oversight of the nations largest probation department is urgent.

Heres the deal.

Hormones for teenage boys

On June 25, 2019, just a little over a year ago, a 16-year-old boy (whom well call Javier, to protect his anonymity) had just been detained and sent toCentral Juvenile Hall, one of the countys two remaining juvenile halls, located northeast of downtown LA, on Eastlake Avenue.

At Eastlake, as the hall is often known, Javier was givena physical examination by some of the facilities medical personnel.

According to the complaint, during the June 25, 2019, exam,medical stafffirst administereda blood test, and a urine test, after which Dr. Danny Wang, reportedlydetermined that Javier had slightly elevated testosterone levels.

Javier was, after all, a teenager, which meanthis hormones were likely to be bouncing quite a bit.

But in Javiers case, the physician who examined him reportedly diagnosed him with Oppositional Defiance Disorder, or ODD, then elected to prescribe an unusual form of medication, with the idea that it would make the boyless aggressive.

(Dr. Wang and any other medical professionals dealing with mental health in probationshalls and camps, dont work for probation directly, but for the LA County Department of Mental Health.)

ODD, as it is known, is not an uncommon diagnosis for boys and girls who come in contact with the juvenile justice system.In thedeeply-researched Los Angeles County Probation Outcomes Report of 2015, lead author Dr. Denise Herz, and her co-authors,found that 92 percentthe kids in LA County Probations carehad some kind of mental health diagnosis out of the American Psychiatric Associations Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. In the case of probations kids,the report found that Disruptive Behavior Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), and a couple of other unpleasantly named mood disorders, were diagnosed 58 percentof the time.

And of course, once there is a diagnosis, treatment often follows and, in juvenile facilities that treatment is often medication.

In Javiers case, themedication was Estradiol, which is a form of the female hormone estrogenthatis most commonlyused by women to help reduce symptoms of menopause.

Wang reportedly prescribed 30 doses of the stuff, to be taken daily, all without Javiers parents knowledge or permission. Javier was reportedly given his first estrogen treatment in the form of three vaccinations.

Worried, Javier told the medical people that hed not given permission to be given any drugs or medicine, and asked what the stuff was for. The nurse reportedly falsely told the teenager that it was to treat a small nodule on his chest.

Javier was still uncomfortable with taking the mystery medication. At first, he said he would refuse to take it. Then reportedly,one of the medical staff told him he could not in fact refuse. Javiers probation officer was also standing nearby when the conversation took place, and reiterated that Javier didnt have a choice in the matter.

Later, Javier would tell his parents, and his lawyer,Wesley G Ouchi,that he was afraid of getting a negative write up, by staff members that could be reported to the judge and negatively affect his case, as the judge had threatened to make his sentence longer and harsher, possibly even send him to the states Department of Juvenile Justice system (DJJ), unless he ran a good program, and got zero write-ups.

Hormone storm

Fearful about giving staff any reason to criticize his behavior, Javier took the Estradiol, as he was instructed.

Replacement hormones like Estradiol are powerful and almostmost immediately, Javier began to feel strange and sick. According to the complaint, the effects were physical, emotional, cognitive, and psychological.

And then he began to grow breasts. Really, it wasmore of a swelling on his chest than actual boobs. But the weird swellings were visible to other kids, said attorney, Wes Ouchi, when WitnessLA spoke to him. Andthen, of course, the teasing began.

Javieralso broke out in pimples on his face, scalp, and body.

He became depressed, and couldnt concentrate. He was highly anxious, had a hard time controlling his thoughts. The teasing from other boys didnt help.

Finally, after 13 doses, a desperate Javier refused the treatment, write-ups, or no write-ups and, this time, he stuck to it.

After he refused treatment, Dr. Wang andhis boss Dr. David Oh, told his parents about the treatment.

But didJavier really receive any kind of accepted treatment?

Asfar as attorney Ouchi has been able to determine, the answer is no.

There isno any kind of indication that providing Estrodial to an adolescent male is any kind of accepted treatment for anything, he said. We think it was an experiment. And we think itslikely not the only time they used the treatment, experimentally.

He and hisfirmhavent done discovery yet, Ouchi said. So they are just at the beginning stages in probing the case more deeply. Yet, he believes theres lots more to be uncovered.

Ouchiisinterested, he said, to find out if there are other teenage boys in probations system who were given estrogen in this potentially purely experimental manner, which he described as potentially criminal.

UCLAs Dr. Jorja Leap, who was part of the planning for the POC, and one of the co-authors ofthe deeply researchedLA County Probation Governance Report, was very disturbed by the implications of the new lawsuit.

These troubling developments point to the need for real oversightwith powerto hold probation, andthose fromother county agencies, whowork inside probations facilities,fullyaccountable when they harm those in their care, she told us.

(You can read the full complaintright here.)

So, yes, fund the POC!

Later this week, WitnessLA willhave a report onanother disturbinglawsuit having to do with LA County Probation, this time pertaining to something that happened during the evacuation of the kids at Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile to the then deserted Las Padrinos Juvenile hall.

This second lawsuit also pointsto the critical need for oversight.

These recent allegations and many others speak to the vital necessity of robust, credible, and meaningful civilian oversight over the Los Angeles County Probation Department, said Cyn Yamashiro after reading the complaint having to do with Javiers case, and discussing the second lawsuit.

The county cannot continue to formulate policy by responding to litigation. Reacting to crises and civil claims as a means of developing public policy ignores the profound harm suffered by victims of this type of abuse and costs the county desperately needed scarce resources.

Yamashiro is the Directing Attorney of the LA County Bar Associations Independent Juvenile Defender Program. He is also on the existing Probation Commission, and on the temporary blue-ribbon commission that designed the POC.

Probation Department reform has been at the top of the list in terms of difficulty in bringing about change in LA County, Supervisor Ridley-Thomas said of the PUC vote, when WLA asked him about the matter. Here it is a full decade-plus, and were just now getting around to establishing an oversight entity with teeth. I never would have imagined it would be this difficult. But I want to give props to the advocates, to the juvenile probationers, to the parents, to the community at large who never gave up, to some of the nonprofit providers, interventionists and a whole host of individuals who know theres a better way to speak the language of reform, rehabilitation, andreentry.

Yep.

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New Lawsuit Tells of 16-Yr-old Boy Allegedly Forced By County Officials to Take Estrogen as Medication to Control His Behavior | - witnessla.com

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