He’s a gardener. She cooks for El Pollo Loco.
Ten years ago, their 16-year-old son wound up in Orange County Juvenile Hall for robbery. He was incarcerated in juvenile hall for a year — for which his parents in Huntington Beach were given an $8,000 bill from county probation to cover the cost of their son’s detention.
New fees outlawed
The juvenile detention fee was allowed under longstanding California laws dating back to the 1960s. Those laws were repealed in 2018 because the fees unfairly victimized the poor and ethnic minorities. A new law, SB 190, bans counties from charging parents and guardians for juvenile detention, legal representation, electronic monitoring, probation supervision and drug testing.
Despite the repeal, the state said counties could still collect any unpaid debt.
More than half of the counties in California went on to forgive that debt, millions of dollars in account receivables. Los Angeles County dissolved $89.2 million in juvenile debt, according to the Western Center on Law and Poverty.
San Bernardino County forgave $16.6 million, the law center reports. Riverside County dissolved $4.1 million last month. San Diego County is on the brink of forgiving $58.8 million.
And Orange County? It’s still collecting on the $38 million debt from 107,293 accounts, even as the global pandemic grinds family incomes into dust.
‘A horrible experience’
The gardener and his fast-food-working wife have chipped away at their debt over the years, $50 at a time, bringing it down to $1,500. But it hangs over their heads, stressing them out. The latest bill says they are 90 days overdue. The bill also says that if they don’t catch up, it could result in court action, such as garnishing their wages or taking their tax refunds.
The county has even pursued families that have declared bankruptcy.
“It’s a terrible situation to be in … a horrible experience,” said the mother. The family’s name is not being disclosed because the Southern California News Group does not identify juveniles convicted of crimes. When the couple first received the juvenile detention bill, she was earning $600 every two weeks. Her husband, less than that.
Her son is now 25 and, she says, going to school. He has since straightened his life out, his mother said.
The mother said the large bill, coupled with the fact her son was behind bars, was almost too much to take.
‘Harmful for families’
“This is harmful for families,” said Rebecca Miller, senior litigator with the Western Center on Law and Poverty. “The burden of this falls hard on low-income, hard-working families.”
“It’s high pain for the families and low gain for the counties,” Miller said.
She explained that counties typically would not be paid the entire amount in a lump sum. Usually, they receive small increments over many years.
The payments are collected by county probation departments. In Orange County, probation spokeswoman Jennifer Palmquist said the department takes its instructions from the Board of Supervisors.
“Until we are told to do differently by the Board of Supervisors, we are continuing our practice,” Palmquist said.
In one example listed by the Probation Department, a family with two sons in the juvenile system ended up owing $76,265 in detention fees, accumulated over several years.
One of the boys entered the system at 14 and stayed at the Youth Guidance Center, Juvenile Hall, the Joplin Youth Center and the Los Pinos camp until he was 18. The other boy entered at 15 and stayed 737 days at Joplin and Los Pinos.
Other examples listed by the Probation Department were mostly in the $10,000 range.
Supervisor: Time to stop?
Supervisor Don Wagner said it seems like a good idea to forgive the debt as a hardship to the poor, but he wanted to see if there was any effect on other county programs.
“The only ones paying are the working families — the deadbeats will never pay anyway,” Wagner said. “It’s sort of a disincentive to get your life in order.
“This is probably something we should stop doing.”
Other supervisors and their representatives did not return phone calls seeking comment.
