Los Padrinos Library: Book Heaven in Youth Juvenile Hall

About the Program

Category: Libraries (Best in Category)

Year: 2017

The Los Padrinos Library is a fully functional library located inside the Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall, which houses more than 250 youth ages ranging from 7 to 18, spending an average of 17 to 21 days at the juvenile hall. It is a collaboration of 3 county departments: LA County Office of Education, LA County Probation Department and LA County Library. By providing quality library services within a juvenile hall, detained youth enjoy the library as an escape from their life in the detention center. With guidance from trained librarians, they develop a love for reading and improve their literacy skills, which is an important factor for their future success.The Los Padrinos Library offers a specially-curated collection that includes recreational materials and non-fiction covering topics especially useful and relevant to the youth detainees. The Library offers more than books; youth detainees also participate in recreational and educational classes. In these classes, they learn skills that can help them lead successful lives. They learn to interact with each other respectfully, build social skills, and collaborate as a team. The Los Padrinos Library is intentionally constructed to look like the teen area of any library in the LA County system. The goal is to create a setting that the youth detainees feel comfortable and familiar with helping ease their transition to normal life upon release. When exiting the juvenile system, youth detainees are provided with a package that contains pre-activated library cards and flyers with info on library resources. Probation officers will give the youth an overview of library services and encourage them to continuing using these services.