Legal News

Practices at Challenger youth center challenged by ACLU

By Richard Binder

The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and other legal groups filed a class-action lawsuit yesterday against the Probation Department and the county Office of Education, alleging that the Challenger Memorial Youth Center in Lancaster has failed "to deliver education and rehabilitative services to incarcerated youth." The suit was filed on behalf of three plaintiffs who were incarcerated as minors and attended the probation camp.

The suit charges that county personnel - including administrators and teachers - have in some instances thrown worksheets under the door of students' cells in lieu of classroom instruction, denied education services when children ask for help or to use the restroom, and systematically denied students access to appropriate instruction and the required minimum school day.

The ACLU, Public Counsel and the Disability Rights Legal Center also seek via the suit to force the county to provide intensive reading and writing services to illiterate youth, and giving children a chance to challenge being removed from a class.

Challenger, which consists of six camps and a school that serves about 650 students, has been the target of a Department of Justice investigation into alleged mistreatment and poor supervision of students, and was cited as having a "broken" school system in a 2009 Probation Commission report.

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Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on January 13, 2010 (boomark / email).