LAPD

Nearly three months after the Los Angeles Police Department vowed to find out why the department had not investigated 4,000 reported cases of child abuse, an in-depth audit of the cases is still not ready to deliver to county child welfare officials.

The first recorded sign of trouble in the brief life of Noah Cuatro came before he was even born. In August 2014, when his mother was nine months pregnant with Noah, she allegedly threw her baby sister, fracturing the 10-month-old’s skull in two places.

Los Angeles has long lagged behind other major U.S. cities when it comes to youth development spending, especially when it comes to comparing city budgets. But now, between juvenile justice reform efforts at the county level and the planned legalization of recreational marijuana in the city, the floodgates to funding may be starting to open.

Under a new Los Angeles Police Department program, Los Angeles youth arrested for certain nonviolent offenses will get a second chance rather than a rap sheet. At a Tuesday meeting of the Los Angeles Police Commission, the LAPD announced that it would expand a partnership with Centinela Youth Services that uses restorative justice to prevent the risk of future arrests and further involvement with the justice system.

Two police officers arrive at a homeless health services event in MacArthur Park in their police car on a cold rainy Friday morning. Nonprofits and government agencies have gathered in the park to offer their services to homeless individuals near downtown Los Angeles.

When Karina Cabrera first sat down with Angelica,* a 15-year-old enrolled in a juvenile diversion program at Centinela Youth Services (CYS), the case manager remembers the youth’s icy stare and clipped answers.

On May 8, The Imprint published a story concerning wide variations in how Los Angeles’ 46 law enforcement agencies respond to reports of suspected child abuse. The figures cited were derived from a review conducted by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office as part of its obligation to monitor the county’s Electronic Suspected Child Abuse Reporting system, known as ESCARS.

In 2013 the Long Beach Police Department (LBPD) fielded 3,195 reports of suspected child abuse. The agency chose not to investigate 1,456 cases, nearly half of all the reports it received that year.