If there's anything the Orange County Department of Probation can learn from the recent firing of six employees, it's that housing male and female inmates in the same dorm can lead to sex.
Today the Orange County Office of Independent Review (OIR) released a report of its findings regarding the incident, which occurred in February 2011 and highlighted security lapses at a Juvenile Hall Facility in Orange where two minor inmates were found having sex with one another.
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According to the report, the probation department responded “quickly” and “assertively” to the incident involving the minors and identified “16 employees potentially implicated in a pattern of failure to do required checks, and allegedly falsifying the records that document those checks.”
The report added that six of those officers have been handed pink slips while three have been put back to work based on a showing of “lesser culpability.” Two left the department early in the investigation, two retired and the fate of one of the officers remains under review.
The mission of the OIR, headed by attorney Steven J. Connolly, is to increase public confidence in local law enforcement agencies, but is seen by many as an impotent office with no power to effect meaningful policy changes. After the incident the probation department told the Orange County Register that the practice of housing male and female inmates together arose from limited resources. It reportedly changed its policy as a result.
