LA County reaches settlement with ACLU over jail conditions
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Los Angeles County and the American Civil Liberties Union have agreed to settle a lawsuit over inhumane conditions and overcrowding at Los Angeles County Jail’s Inmate Reception Center.
The two sides filed a joint stipulated agreement in the U.S. District Court on Friday, June 16.
Terms of the agreement prevent Los Angeles County from holding anyone at the IRC for more than 24 hours and from chaining incarcerated persons to benches and other objects for more than four hours. The county must provide clean and sanitary cells, with potable water, and access to medical and mental health services, to every person held in the IRC, according to the agreement.
Los Angeles County also has pledged to increase the number of psychiatric staff at the IRC and agreed to build nearly 2,000 treatment beds for people who are mentally incompetent to stand trial, or who have severe mental health disorders, according to the ACLU.
Los Angeles County, in an announcement, stated the agreement “recognizes the improved conditions in the Inmate Reception Center (IRC) resulting from the remedial actions taken by the County in recent months to improve waiting times, overcrowding and unsanitary conditions.”
The county already is taking steps to decrease jail populations, expand access to community-based care for those who can be safely released from custody, and increase staffing to provide better care for those who remain in custody, according to the announcement.
Peter Eliasberg, chief counsel for the ACLU of Southern California, acknowledged Los Angeles County’s progress in recent months, though he noted that the ACLU had to sue before officials finally took action.
“They have, I think for the first time, committed to making real systemic change that we hope will make these problems a thing in the past,” Eliasberg said. “We can’t just keep incarcerating thousands and thousands of people who shouldn’t be in jail. The commitment the county is making in building those beds is a really important part of this solution.”
The ACLU filed a motion in February asking the judge to hold the county in contempt for failing to follow through with fixes to the “abysmal” conditions that were mandated by an earlier court order in September. First-hand accounts submitted to the court described inmates sleeping on cold floors, littered with trash and feces, in overcrowded cells.
Individuals suffering from medical and mental health conditions were sometimes chained to benches for hours and not provided with the medications they needed, Eliasberg said.
The IRC was meant to serve as an temporary space to process incoming detainees, but short staffing and a skyrocketing inmate population have led to it being used almost as another housing unit, he said.
Eliasberg said the ACLU already has seen fewer complaints and is noticing tangible improvements from L.A. County’s efforts.
“It’s a very significant result and it will really help address and fix what has basically been on and off for years a real cancer,” Eliasberg said.
The ACLU plans to continue to monitor the situation to ensure L.A. County does not slide backwards, he said.
Since February, Los Angeles County has added a 24/7 compliance sergeant to the IRC, expanded the number of cleaning crews and sanitation checks, increased access to mental health services, hired 182 health services employees and assigned 215 recent graduates to the jails, and implemented a wristband scanner to better track how long people are held during the intake process.
The county is expediting the transfers of individuals to state facilities and has noted a 7% drop in the total jail population from Feb. 27 to June 9, according to the county’s press release.
A court order temporarily reinstating zero bail also may help further reduce pretrial populations in the jail, county officials added.
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