They asked with a poster. In July 2024, teenagers locked up at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey put their request in front of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors: let us hug our parents. This fall, California made it the law.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the “Hug Act,” Assembly Bill 1646, on Sept. 27, The Appeal reported. It gives young people in juvenile facilities the right to hug and hold hands with visitors, and KTLA reports it makes California the first state to do so. Staff can limit contact only when there is a documented, significant safety or security concern, such as a court order or a temporary health issue affecting one person.
Who sits on the other side of that glass matters. The Sentencing Project found that Black youth in California are detained at 275 per 100,000, against 33 per 100,000 for white youth: 8.3 times the rate. The mothers who were told they could not touch their sons, and the sons who went without, were disproportionately Black.
Hugs had been banned at Los Padrinos and at Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Sylmar, with contraband as the stated reason. Emily Zamora of the Youth Justice Coalition has pointed to the contradiction: “How could a young person’s parent bring in those drugs into a facility when they cannot even hug their loved one.”
Mercedes Maradiaga knows the cost. Her son spent four years at Los Padrinos. She could not hug him, The Appeal reported, even after officers beat him badly enough that he needed ACL surgery.
The bill’s author, Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, a Los Angeles Democrat, said: “Children deserve to be held, loved on, and affirmed by their parents.” When the county board backed the bill in March, Supervisor Janice Hahn said of the poster: “Seeing that poster broke my heart.” She added: “No one should tell a child that they cannot hug their mom.”
The mentorship group Hoops 4 Justice helped the young people carry their request from a poster to Sacramento. They won something state officials had never been asked to guarantee, and it cost nothing but the will to grant it.
A hug does not fix Los Padrinos. The Appeal describes rat infestations, flooded toilets, overdoses and medical neglect there, and notes that 30 officers faced criminal charges in 2025 for encouraging “gladiator fights” among detainees. Advocates say the hug is a floor, not a finish. They are now pushing to close Los Padrinos for good and to move the county’s youth into community-based programs run through its new Department of Youth Development.
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