Persons taken into custody and persons alleged to be within the description of Section 300, or persons adjudged to be such and made dependent children of the court pursuant to this chapter solely upon that ground, shall be provided by the board of supervisors with separate facilities segregated from persons either alleged or adjudged to come within the description of Section 601 or 602 except as provided in Section 16514. Separate segregated facilities may be provided in the juvenile hall or elsewhere.
The facilities required by this section shall, with regard to minors alleged or adjudged to come within Section 300, be nonsecure.
For the purposes of this section, the term “secure facility” means a facility which is designed and operated so as to insure that all entrances to, and exits from, the facility are under the exclusive control of the staff of the facility, whether or not the person being detained has freedom of movement within the perimeters of the facility, or which relies on locked rooms and buildings, fences, or physical restraints in order to control behavior of its residents. The term “nonsecure facility” means a facility that is not characterized by the use of physically restricting construction, hardware, and procedures and which provides its residents access to the surrounding community with minimal supervision. A facility shall not be deemed secure due solely to any of the following conditions: (1) the existence within the facility of a small room for the protection of individual residents from themselves or others; (2) the adoption of regulations establishing reasonable hours for residents to come and go from the facility based upon a sensible and fair balance between allowing residents free access to the community and providing the staff with sufficient authority to maintain order, limit unreasonable actions by residents, and to ensure that minors placed in their care do not come and go at all hours of the day and night or absent themselves at will for days at a time; and (3) staff control over ingress and egress no greater than that exercised by a prudent parent. The State Department of Social Services may adopt regulations governing the use of small rooms pursuant to this section.
No minor described in this section may be held in temporary custody in any building that contains a jail or lockup for the confinement of adults, unless, while in the building, the minor is under continuous supervision and is not permitted to come into or remain in contact with adults in custody in the building. In addition, no minor who is alleged to be within the description of Section 300 may be held in temporary custody in a building that contains a jail or lockup for the confinement of adults, unless the minor is under the direct and continuous supervision of a peace officer or other child protective agency worker, as specified in Section 11165.9 of the Penal Code, until temporary custody and detention of the minor is assumed pursuant to Section 309. However, if a child protective agency worker is not available to supervise the minor as certified by the law enforcement agency which has custody of the minor, a trained volunteer may be directed to supervise the minor. The volunteer shall be trained and function under the auspices of the agency which utilizes the volunteer. The minor may not remain under the supervision of the volunteer for more than three hours. A county which elects to utilize trained volunteers for the temporary supervision of minors shall adopt guidelines for the training of the volunteers which guidelines shall be approved by the State Department of Social Services. Each county which elects to utilize trained volunteers for the temporary supervision of minors shall report annually to the department on the number of volunteers utilized, the number of minors under their supervision, and the circumstances under which volunteers were utilized.
No record of the detention of such a person shall be made or kept by any law enforcement agency or the Department of Justice as a record of arrest.
(Amended by Stats. 1989, Ch. 913, Sec. 2.)
Last modified: October 25, 2018