In March, California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed criminal charges against 30 current and former officers accused of orchestrating and enabling “gladiator-style” fights between detained youths at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Los Angeles County, casting a spotlight on what officials described as a deeply broken juvenile justice system.

The charges, which included child endangerment, assault, and conspiracy, stem from a monthslong investigation into claims that staff forced minors to fight as a form of punishment or entertainment. In some instances, officers allegedly placed bets on the outcomes or watched without intervening. 

Dovontray Farmer was one of those victims. Farmer was only 13 years old when he was first put on probation and spent most of his childhood in house arrest. He emphasized that anyone  at Los Padrinos unaffiliated with a gang—also known as “non-affiliates”—were especially vulnerable. 

“Every Thursday, the non-affiliates would go and line up, and then you gotta fight each other,” he told Prism. “If you don’t want to fight each other, you’re going to have to fight a gang member. If you don’t want to do that, you get jumped.” 

According to Farmer, the officers on site rewarded the boys for “winning” fights, especially against those whom certain probation officers did not like. 

“If you can fight, or you stab someone and run up in somebody’s classroom, then you can get popped out. You get extra phone calls, showers, even snacks like Gatorades and Snapples and Fruit Roll-Ups,” he said. “They would reward us for participating. … It was for their entertainment.”

For many young Black and Latinx boys, the juvenile justice system becomes a crucible of trauma, compounding the hardships they would face in their communities. The orchestrated fights were often a matter of survival for young people like Farmer.

“The staff don’t serve our food, they just go get it from the kitchen and they have the kids serving our food. If we’re beefing or didn’t want to fight, the kid would spit in your food. So it’s like, now you gotta fight or you just ain’t gonna eat,” he said.

Floyd Harge, 22, recalled a similar experience at Los Padrinos. He first became entangled with the school-to-prison pipeline at age 14, after he was kicked out of multiple schools for fighting. 

Harge acknowledged that his journey to detention was influenced by insufficient resources and support. 

“We didn’t really have anything in my life, so I had to go get it by myself,” he told Prism, referring to some of the charges that led to his detainment. 

Harge has come a long way since serving time at Los Padrinos. He recently graduated from the Youth Justice Coalition’s (YJC) LOBOS fellowship, a program focused on training and empowering young people in LA County as organizers and leaders in the fight for youth justice. 

Organizations like YJC that work closely with system-impacted youth advocate for the complete closure of juvenile detention centers throughout the county. Both Harge and Farmer have found resources and support at the main center, located in South Central, which acts as a home base for a lot of their peers. 

Despite the strides he’s made since his days at Los Padrinos, Harge still remembers his time there vividly. He spoke to Prism about the harsh conditions he endured in detention, including being denied bathroom breaks, phone calls, and a culture of violence fostered by staff who treated youth more like criminals than children. 

“They didn’t really care about my personal health. They really just said, ‘You’re a criminal, so you’re gonna be a criminal,’” he said.

Like Farmer, Harge said that, on numerous occasions, probation officers witnessed, encouraged, and incentivized unsupervised fights among detainees. When fights occurred, he said staff would just “sit there and watch” for “a good 20 seconds.” 

“They’d be like, ‘I’ll get you a bunch of food if you fight this guy,’” he said.

While the 30 indicted officers have been placed on leave without pay, advocates contend that the situation at Los Padrinos reflects larger structural issues in juvenile detention. The LA County Probation Oversight Commission (POC) has joined a growing chorus of advocates and community groups raising alarm about ongoing youth detention practices, calling the conditions inside Los Padrinos unsafe and deeply unjust. Following the reports of the “gladiator-style” fights, several organizations moved to depopulate the detention center, with the goal of ultimately shutting it down completely.

As of May, Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall held approximately 270 youths. The detainees there remain among the most vulnerable in the country; over 85% have not been adjudicated and have no access to bail, according to the POC. About 94% are Black or Latino and come from under-resourced neighborhoods throughout LA.

County officials have pledged a series of reforms, including increased oversight, trauma-informed staff training, and stricter accountability measures. But for many advocates, these promises are both overdue and insufficient. Even before the attorney general brought formal charges against the facility, several LA-based coalitions had condemned the county’s reliance on juvenile halls that have been deemed “unsuitable” for youth incarceration. They argue that despite extensive documentation of harm, meaningful change has been elusive.

Organizations like the Los Angeles Youth Uprising (LAYUP) have outlined a clear set of community-driven alternatives to incarceration. In an open letter to LA County leaders, LAYUP demanded a significant reduction in the number of incarcerated youth and accelerated investment in non-carceral approaches. While the county Board of Supervisors has passed a number of motions aimed at decarceration—most notably the 2020 “Youth Justice Reimagined” framework—advocates say progress has stalled due to inconsistent implementation and resistance within the Probation Department.

Still, advocates—especially formerly detained youth like Farmer and Harge—are committed to showing up, pushing forward, and speaking out against the system of state-sanctioned violence that directly impacted their livelihoods. 

Farmer, currently on parole, has now graduated school and is working full-time. When asked if he hesitated to speak publicly about his time at Los Padrinos, his response was resolute.

“I need to hold them accountable,” he said. “Someone’s gotta hold them accountable.”

Editorial Team:
Rikki Li, Lead Editor
Carolyn Copeland, Top Editor
Rashmee Kumar, Copy Editor