LA County Probation Youth Justice: Healing Not Punishment

Disturbing new lawsuit alleging 16-year-old boy forced to take estrogen in LA juvenile hall as behavior control “medication” points again to urgent need for oversight of nation’s largest probation department

Celeste Fremon
Written by Celeste Fremon

On June 7, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted on a new motion co-authored by Supervisors Mark Ridley-Thomas and Janice Hahn, that when it passed early on Tuesday afternoon, will reinstate the funding for the long-planned and much-anticipated Probation Oversight Commission or POC, that was slashed at last week’s board meeting.

(We wrote here about last week’s 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 probation’s juvenile halls when he was allegedly forced against his will, and without his parent’s knowledge, into an extremely unusual form of “treatment,” by various medical professionals who work inside probation’s youth facilities.

The story is an alarming one, and it illustrates one more time why so many youth advocates and others believe that civilian oversight of the nation’s largest probation department is urgent.

Here’s the deal.

Hormones for teenage boys

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

At Eastlake, as the hall is often known, Javier was given a physical examination by some of the facility’s medical personnel.

According to the complaint, during the June 25, 2019, exam, medical staff first administered a blood test, then a urine test, after which Dr. Danny Wang determined that Javier had slightly elevated testosterone levels.

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

But in Javier’s 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 boy less “aggressive.”

(Dr. Wang and any other medical professionals dealing with mental health or physical in probation’s halls and camps, don’t work for probation directly.  In the case of Dr. Wang and Dr. David Oh, they work for Juvenile Court Health Services, which is a part of the Department of Health Services.)**

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

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

In Javier’s case, the medication was Estradiol, which is a form of the female hormone estrogen that is most commonly used by women to help reduce symptoms of menopause.

Wang reportedly prescribed 30 doses of the stuff, to be taken daily, all without Javier’s 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 he’d 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.  Javier’s probation officer was also standing nearby when the conversation took place, and reiterated that Javier didn’t 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 sending him to the state’s 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 almost most 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 was more of a swelling on his chest than actual boobs. But the weird boob-like swellings were visible to other kids, said attorney, Wes Ouchi, when WitnessLA spoke to him.  And then, of course, the teasing began.

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

He became depressed, and couldn’t concentrate.  He was highly anxious, had a hard time controlling his thoughts. The teasing from other boys didn’t 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 and his boss Dr. David Oh, told his parents about the treatment.  At least, sort of.  He didn’t really explain what the treatment actually was.

So, did Javier really receive any kind of accepted treatment?

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

“There is no 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 it’s likely not the only time they used the treatment, experimentally.”

So far, WitnessLA’s preliminary probe of the matter yields the same utter lack of studies or academic papers on the topic.

Ouchi and his firm haven’t done discovery yet, he said.  So they are just at the beginning stages in probing the case more deeply.  Yet, he believes there’s lots more to be uncovered, noting the curious fact that the doctors seemed to have had the drug handy when Javier was first examined when, obviously, Estrodial is not a normal drug to just keep on hand, such as Tylenol or a broad-spectrum antibiotic.

Ouchi is interested, he said,  to find out if there are other teenage boys in probation’s system who were given estrogen in this potentially purely experimental manner, which he described as “potentially criminal.”

UCLA’s Dr. Jorja Leap, who was part of the planning for the POC, and one of the co-authors of the deeply researched LA County Probation Governance Report, was very disturbed by the implications of the new lawsuit.

“These troubling developments point to the need for real oversight with power to hold probation — and those from other county agencies, who work inside probation’s facilities — fully accountable when they harm those in their care,” she told us.

(You can read the full complaint right here.)

So, yes, fund the POC!

Later this week, WitnessLA will have another report on another disturbing lawsuit 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 Hall during the Sylmar fire.

This second lawsuit also points to 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 Javier’s 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 Association’s 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 we’re 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 there’s a better way to speak the language of reform, rehabilitation, and reentry.”

Post Script

As so it was that the motion for re-funding for the Probation Oversight Commission was passed by the board, as were motions for additional funding for the Office of Diversion and Reentry, and funding for the Alternatives To Incarceration initiative.

“We are having a national conversation about the importance of effective oversight and accountability in our criminal justice system, and that must apply to our probation system as well,” said Supervisor Janice Hahn, who was the co-author of the motion to revive funding for the POC. “As the Probation Department undergoes major changes, we need to get this oversight commission up and running so that it can start the important work ensuring that the young people in our charge get the best care and support possible as they work to get their life back on track.”

Los Angeles County Inspector General Max Huntsman also spoke out on the POC as well.

“The Probation Department is at a critical point and needs strong civilian oversight now, not later,” he said. “With a strong POC and investigative role for the OIG, it has an opportunity to remake itself not only to prevent abuses, but to improve public safety, promote well-being and further reduce incarceration.”

Justice advocates and others hope Huntsman’s view will carry the day.


**This post was last updated and 6:05 p.m., July 7, 2020. Also, we originally said that Dr. Danny Wang, and Dr. David Oh, worked for the LA County Department of Mental Health. That is incorrect. They work for Juvenile Court Health Services, which is a part of the Department of Health Services. Dr.  David Oh is reportedly the medical director.

45 Comments

  • The County Department of Health Services, not Probation, makes all medical decisions regarding the care and treatment of minors in the Juvenile Halls. The medical unit’s facilities are located in our halls and camps, but treatment is, rightfully, independent of Probation management. Your misleading headline and article are an embarrassment.

  • The Department of Mental Health supervises the decisions about psychotropic medications in Juvenile Hall. Once again, not Probation or it’s management.

  • Didn’t the article state that Javier’s Probation Officer told him he had to take the medication, “Javier’s probation officer was also standing nearby when the conversation took place, and reiterated that Javier didn’t have a choice in the matter.” So it would seem to me that the headline is not misleading. It would also seem to me that many people try to poke holes at articles on this site and ignore inconvenient facts like the one I just pointed out.

  • FNF thanks for explaining that. I was wondering if Dr Wong was employed by the Probation Dept., as the story didn’t say. Very cynical manipulation of the facts to push a political agenda. Witness la can be down right awful sometimes.

    Btw, looking forward to witness la’s denouncement of young boys and girls caught up in the transgender hysteria receiving hormones and even surgery. Lots to uncover there I’m sure, crazy parents, sketchy doctors, won’t be holding my breath though, wrong political agenda.

  • Editor’s Note:

    Dear “Friend not Foe,” thanks for pointing out the issue with DMH. Although the post is up, I’m still editing, proofing, and have to add one more quote. I meant to clarify the DMH thing sooner. But it’s fixed now. There are various agencies that had a part in this head-spinningly awful situation.

    Stay safe everyone.

    C.

  • You expect the probation officer to override the Doctor regarding medical decisions? Doctor prescribes medication so it up to the juvenile delinquent and probation officer to decide if they agree with the prognosis? That’s pretty dumb.

  • No I expect that the Probation Officer not to tell Javier that “he didn’t have choice in the matter,” and allow him to make up his own mind or at least talk to his parents about taking the medication. To threaten or imply discipline to a child for making a decision about their own health is what is wrong with this system.

  • Celeste Fremon, you are no journalist. The article is up, yet you are still working on it? Clearly your aim is to vilify the Probation Department and to help bring it down, even if it means abandoning your own integrity as a journalist! Shame on you!

  • According to an article I just read, a typical (adult) male generally has anywhere between a fifth and half as much estradiol in his bloodstream than a woman. It’s naturally manufactured in the testes. The Dr. noticed that his testosterone levels were slightly off and apparently thought that maybe that contributed to some of his behavioral problems. Sounds to me like he hoped to kill two birds with one stone and help the kid but he reacted poorly to the rx and stopped taking it. If he was breaking the rules with that choice, did Probation take him back to court for a violation hearing? Minors and adults in custody can and do refuse meds all the time. If it’s critical, the guidance of the court is sought. Not buying the facts as laid out here – another rush to judgement.

  • Who hires these people? Dr. Wang, Dr. Oh and Dr. Leap!

    Let me get my Leap and Wang my Oh!

    Reminds me of the Three Stooges, “calling Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard.”

  • exactly voice of reason….if a youth fears retaliation and/or longer sentencing of course they will obey the officer.

  • Students are numbers to schools, so the more services they can provide for imaginary diseases the more money the school gets. I was sentenced to 6 years of speech therapy & when that ended they threatened to arrest me if I could not prove I was eating so I buy lunch instead of packing it daily. Schools are currently trying to replace Security with more Child Services to increase funding for this child abuse.

    Other Child Social Worker abuses include these:
    1800- 1930’s Orphan Train Movement kidnapped European children to sell as replacement labors for African slaves
    1970’s Hunting sexual predators by training children to make false accusation against parents, to justify taking kids away.
    1990’s Drugging kids with Ritalin & Prozac to make kids customers for life
    2000’s Misdiagnosing everything as autism to increase funding & give children a crippling mindset of over sensitivity, & customers for life.
    2010’s Wrong gender. Genital mutilation & castration, to decrease population & ensure eunuch loyalty; so that once again man, will continue the pride heritage of trans forming into victim women by wearing pretty white dresses & matching masks. As well as, you guessed it, customers for life with hormonal drugs!

  • Read this one, too.
    https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-07-15/teenage-boy-was-given-estrogen-developed-breast-tissue-while-in-l-a-county-juvenile-hall-lawsuit-alleges?_amp=true

    People are truly forgetting the whole point of this article!!! Regardless of what mistakes/errors were made in it, the facts are still right in your face. AND YET the others commenting on this article continue to point fingers at the author instead of doing your own research!!

    The point of this is to spread awareness about the corruption going on in not just the facilities, but the COUNTRY. This isn’t a conspiracy because it’s happening right in front of you! If you aren’t angry at the FACT that CHILDREN are undergoing a hormonal treatment for a BEHAVIORAL DISORDER, then shame on YOU.

    Mind you I am 16 like the child that went through this HORRIBLE UNAPPROVED TREATMENT WITHOUT CONSENT OF ANYONE WHATSOEVER and is now facing physical, mental, cognative, and emotional changes because of this.

    ESTROGEN IS NOT AN OPTION TO TREAT BEHAVIORAL DISORDERS AS SAID BY OTHER NUMEROUS DOCTORS AND PROFESSORS. The manipulation that this child went through is DISGUSTING and ILLEGAL and the people reading this should NOT be getting angry at the author.

    If you can’t see with your own two eyes, then you shouldn’t be the one to point fingers.

  • Forced to take hormones…
    “The future is female” means that they’re at war against masculinity. Full-on assault.

  • The degree of medical ignorance in your reply is astounding. Please find anywhere else in the history of medicine where someone with ODD was treated with Estradiol.

  • They made a cis male kid take estrogen for behavior modification? Not only is that incredibly unethical, it’s not even what you would use to lower testosterone. People say it’s wrong to let trans kids take even puberty blockers and they do this to a cis kid in juvie, all their arguments against trans folks are goddamn projection.

  • What a pedantic thing to dismiss the entire article over.

    “The murderer was arrested by feds and not local police as the crimes were committed interstate. Thus this article and its headline is wrong and stupid and the news about the arrest of this murderer should not be disseminated!”

  • No 16 year old boy should be taking estrogen. He got gyno. Estrogen is worse than heroin. Anyone on here thinking that this was ok is a horrible person. The doctor should be sent to jail for the rest of his life

  • The boy was given 2mg of estrogen a day!!! That’s fucking insane. Anyone on here doesn’t know shit about hormones. This is worse than giving him heroin.

  • The boy was given 2mg of estrogen a day!!! That’s fucking insane. Anyone on here doesn’t know shit about hormones. This is worse than giving him heroin.

  • Not as much of an embarrassment as a Government office staffed with incompetent bureaucrats who force sex hormones on our youth in some Nazi-esque experiment.

    Do you even know what the Hippocratic oath is?!? Your comment suggest you either don’t or are too callous to care. How absolutely disgusting.

  • Wow. Just wow.

    The amount of people on here who clearly have an agenda regarding transgenderism and transitioning, and therefore, feel some need to justify this clearly out of control government behavior is astounding.

    Can you imagine if the doctor had said ‘this person has ODD, and they are transgender, we must stop them from taking the hormones they currently are taking to stop the ODD”.

    You same people would be up in arms screaming at the sky about how someones right were being violated.

    When it comes to some random boy who was forced to take hormones, and ended up growing breast over this your response ‘who cares, it wasnt the probation department it was the health department’.

    Whats that saying…if it wasnt for the double standard the left in American would have no standards?

  • ” If you aren’t angry at the FACT that CHILDREN are undergoing a hormonal treatment for a BEHAVIORAL DISORDER, then shame on YOU. ”

    Exactly. Instead we have pedantic people arguing about which corrupt department of the LA county government is responsible. As if that somehow is the real issue LOL.

    Spot the F on Jayden.

  • The US hanged Nazi doctors for this in Nuremberg. This atrocity was done by the government to a prisoner. It was torture at least as bad as waterboarding because it caused permanent damage to the victim. The US has an international treaty obligation to punish this crime. Barr should act. These are the principles the US applied to Germans in Nuremberg and should be applied to Americans today.

    [from Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals
    under Control Council Law No. 10. Nuremberg, October 1946–April 1949.
    Washington, D.C.: U.S. G.P.O, 1949–1953.]

    Permissible Medical Experiments

    The great weight of the evidence before us is to the effect that
    certain types of medical experiments on human beings, when kept within
    reasonably well-defined bounds, conform to the ethics of the medical
    profession generally. The protagonists of the practice of human
    experimentation justify their views on the basis that such experiments
    yield results for the good of society that are unprocurable by other
    methods or means of study. All agree, however, that certain basic
    principles must be observed in order to satisfy moral, ethical and legal
    concepts:

    1. The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential.
    This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give
    consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of
    choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit,
    duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or
    coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the
    elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an
    understanding and enlightened decision. This latter element requires
    that before the acceptance of an affirmative decision by the
    experimental subject there should be made known to him the nature,
    duration, and purpose of the experiment; the method and means by which
    it is to be conducted; all inconveniences and hazards reasonably to be
    expected; and the effects upon his health or person which may possibly
    come from his participation in the experiment.

    The duty and responsibility for ascertaining the quality of the consent
    rests upon each individual who initiates, directs or engages in the
    experiment. It is a personal duty and responsibility which may not be
    delegated to another with impunity.

    2. The experiment should be such as to yield fruitful results for the
    good of society, unprocurable by other methods or means of study, and
    not random and unnecessary in nature.

    3. The experiment should be so designed and based on the results of
    animal experimentation and a knowledge of the natural history of the
    disease or other problem under study that the anticipated results will
    justify the performance of the experiment.

    4. The experiment should be so conducted as to avoid all unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury.

    5. No experiment should be conducted where there is an a priori reason
    to believe that death or disabling injury will occur; except, perhaps,
    in those experiments where the experimental physicians also serve as
    subjects.

    6. The degree of risk to be taken should never exceed that determined
    by the humanitarian importance of the problem to be solved by the
    experiment.

    7. Proper preparations should be made and adequate facilities provided
    to protect the experimental subject against even remote possibilities of
    injury, disability, or death.

    8. The experiment should be conducted only by scientifically qualified
    persons. The highest degree of skill and care should be required through
    all stages of the experiment of those who conduct or engage in the
    experiment.

    9. During the course of the experiment the human subject should be at
    liberty to bring the experiment to an end if he has reached the physical
    or mental state where continuation of the experiment seems to him to be
    impossible.

    10. During the course of the experiment the scientist in charge must be
    prepared to terminate the experiment at any stage, if he has probably
    cause to believe, in the exercise of the good faith, superior skill and
    careful judgment required of him that a continuation of the experiment
    is likely to result in injury, disability, or death to the experimental
    subject.

    Of the ten principles which have been enumerated our judicial concern,
    of course, is with those requirements which are purely legal in nature —
    or which at least are so clearly related to matters legal that they
    assist us in determining criminal culpability and punishment. To go
    beyond that point would lead us into a field that would be beyond our
    sphere of competence. However, the point need not be labored. We find
    from the evidence that in the medical experiments which have been
    proved, these ten principles were much more frequently honored in their
    breach than in their observance. Many of the concentration camp inmates
    who were the victims of these atrocities were citizens of countries
    other than the German Reich. They were non-German nationals, including
    Jews and “asocial persons”, both prisoners of war and civilians, who had
    been imprisoned and forced to submit to these tortures and barbarities
    without so much as a semblance of trial. In every single instance
    appearing in the record, subjects were used who did not consent to the
    experiments; indeed, as to some of the experiments, it is not even
    contended by the defendants that the subjects occupied the status of
    volunteers. In no case was the experimental subject at liberty of his
    own free choice to withdraw from any experiment. In many cases
    experiments were performed by unqualified persons; were conducted at
    random for no adequate scientific reason, and under revolting physical
    conditions. All of the experiments were conducted with unnecessary
    suffering and injury and but very little, if any, precautions were taken
    to protect or safeguard the human subjects from the possibilities of
    injury, disability, or death. In every one of the experiments the
    subjects experienced extreme pain or torture, and in most of them they
    suffered permanent injury, mutilation, or death, either as a direct
    result of the experiments or because of lack of adequate follow-up care.

    Obviously all of these experiments involving brutalities, tortures,
    disabling injury, and death were performed in complete disregard of
    international conventions, the laws and customs of war, the general
    principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws of all
    civilized nations, and Control Council Law No. 10. Manifestly human
    experiments under such conditions are contrary to “the principles of the
    law of nations as they result from the usages established among
    civilized peoples, from the laws of humanity, and from the dictates of
    public conscience.”

  • It was an experiment with no basis whatsoever in medicine. It was done on a child prisoner against his will under threat of a longer sentence. Not only that, the unethical experiment was performed without the knowledge or consent of his parents. There was no basis in medicine on which to believe that this experiment would help the child. Female hormones are not a medical treatment for the condition they diagnosed. It’s like claiming you gave him female hormones to treat insomnia. This was an experiment to see what would happen carried against the will of the victim without the consent of his parents. Was he the only one that this experiment was performed on? There should be a criminal investigation into this.

  • When they coerced the child to submit to unethical medical experimentation, they became complicit and belong in the same prison cell with the “doctor” and the warden. Were they taking kickbacks for performing these experiments on captive subjects?

  • They were permitting unethical medical experimentation on unwilling prisoners. The staff provided the threat of a longer sentence to coerce the victim into taking the pills. They also knew that they needed the informed consent of his parents and that experiments on unwilling prisoners is a crime in all civilized countries. If it were legal, unwilling prisoners could used to test Covid vaccines to speed up the process.Not that I want to give the County Department of Health Services and their probation pals any ideas.

  • Jake, “arguing which corrupt department”? Okay, your making wide assumptions that there is corruption, first of all. But it’s logical and crucial to point out which department was responsible (not Probation).

  • Estradiol is commonly employed in Transgender Hormone Therapy for MTF transitioners. It’s employed as a female growth hormone to stimulate sex characteristics.

    They also gave him synthetic progestogen ( as progestin ) which is used for ‘puberty suppression’. That would have l significantly suppressed his testosterone levels, basically creating an endocrine state similar to pre-puberty.

    So it looks like they were deliberately trying to induce feminine sex traits. These hormones are targeted and specific in their function, not what you’d use in a misguided effort to counteract testosterone with estrogen.

    That conjecture is backed up by the fact that they additionally administered an HPV vaccine and tuberculosis test. The HPV vaccine works to prevent neoplasia ( errant tissue growth ) and a tuberculosis test which would determine the presence of Tubercle bacteria in the lungs and chest. In other words, they were preparing him for breast development.

    I’d look for an association w/ the CHLA pediatric transgender clinic. It’s one of the major NIH COE’s for pediatric transgender medicine and regularly sources minors from public welfare services for studies. CHLA’s transmed group has also aroused ethical concerns due to perceived ideological motives, lax safeguards and biased study design in this area.

  • The LA County Dept of Mental Health has always been in charge of the Mentally ill both in custody and out. LE takes the heat for their failures for the last 4 decades. Who has oversight over this Dept. The LA County Board of Supervisors. The only thing the BOS is good at reimagining is new was to avoid responsibility.

  • The pharmaceutical companies make millions of dollars each year pedaling their drugs to doctors and mental health professionals. What company sold the Estrogen pills to the doctors to be used on teenage males in probation’s care? Why was it sold? Was there an oversight panel to look at the drug formulary to see if it was an approved medication authorized to be used in the Juvenile hall? What was the sale pitch that prompted procurement to buy estrogen? Hidden experimentation maybe?
    Btw, probation officers aren’t trained doctors. They don’t administer any form of medical treatment, drugs, injections, or suggest treatment or give medical opinions. And, I’m sure they would get terminated for interfering with medical treatment.

  • If you follow The pass history of WLA, it’s goal must be to destroy the probation dept and replace it with the new rehabilitation reform and less lockup.
    It’s about $$$. So private millionaire institutions can now get a piece of the state budget pie in the form of new community programming, half-way houses, mental health treatment centers, job training centers, counseling services, bridge housing for newly released and more…great. All in the name of reimagining California judicial system and defunding law enforcement. Let’s see where it all goes.

  • I hear you.
    The rabbit hole runs deep and so many people up the chain of command in health services must have authorized the purchase of this medication: it was readily available, why? Hmmmmmmm?
    Oh, because “county” and “probation officer” was mentioned in the article. It’s partially implied that LA CO Probation Dept gave this young man Estrogen to control his defiant behavior. When did probation become doctors? This publication dumps on Probation at every opportunity.
    I understand the intent of the story but it’s irresponsible when you report a story without the complete facts.
    But, again…
    I‘ve Learned to expect this kind of reporting from WLA.
    This is the same publication that rush to vilify probation staff for using pepper spray but refused to print a follow up story on their acquittal.

    I apologize if there was an acquittal follow up story. Maybe I missed it.

  • Also the Nuremberg Code would be a good inclusion. It was set up after the NAZI experiments on prisoners was discovered to be highly unethical.

  • Funny, Friend not Foe never mentions the malpractice against the boy who was given female hormone as treatment. No mention of this, just a good mention to sick institution that allows this abuse.

  • The story is about the kid being injected illegally. Not about who’s to blame.

    The article is very specific in stating this is THE OPENING INFORMATION

    People like you attempt to paint the article as false using gaslighting and misdirection.

    You’re no better than Snopes, a heavy politicized ‘ fact checker ‘

    YOU are an embarassment

  • Really? That is the part of all this you found embarrassing ?? LOL Probably why your little agency is in the shitshow it now finds itself my “friend” !

  • […] WitnessLA noted that is very common for children to be diagnosed with behavioral disorders when they are admitted to juvenile detention centers. After the diagnosis is given, authorities can begin drugging the children admitted to the facilities to produce compliance. Dosing male children with estrogen though is a new phenomenon, enabled by LGBT perversion enveloping all of society. […]

  • […] WitnessLA noted that is very common for children to be diagnosed with behavioral disorders when they are admitted to juvenile detention centers. After the diagnosis is given, authorities can begin drugging the children admitted to the facilities to produce compliance. Dosing male children with estrogen though is a new phenomenon, enabled by LGBT perversion enveloping all of society. […]

  • […] WitnessLA noted that is very common for children to be diagnosed with behavioral disorders when they are admitted to juvenile detention centers. After the diagnosis is given, authorities can begin drugging the children admitted to the facilities to produce compliance. Dosing male children with estrogen though is a new phenomenon, enabled by LGBT perversion enveloping all of society. […]

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