The Board of Corrections gave its stamp of approval to the unorthodox plan at its January meeting in Sacramento. The board's position is we want to bring these facilities into compliance and work with them to make a suitable place. We're not sanctions driven. We're compliance driven. In contrast to Fresno County's juvenile hall, cells at Tulare County's new hall have a toilet.
Guards also have a clear view of all hall.
The board isn't the only agency that looks at the hall. By law, it must be inspected yearly by a judge of the juvenile court, the county Juvenile Justice Commission, the health department and fire department. These entities also inspect with an eye for correcting defects. The state fire marshal, for example, notes the hall doesn't have fire sprinklers, including in maximum-security lockdown, where youths are behind doors that have to be opened one at a time with a key. And the Health Department, which inspects the hall's kitchen and medical clinic and checks the cleanliness of the hall, gave the institution an overall clean bill of health in 2000.