Attorneys with the ACLU went before a federal judge Wednesday to ask a federal judge to hold L.A. County in contempt for allegedly failing to improve what the ACLU called “abysmal” conditions at the Inmate Reception Center (IRC).
The ACLU alleged in an emergency motion filed last fall that its attorneys, who recently visited the facility, saw “abhorrent” conditions at the IRC, including: “[p]eople with serious mental illness chained to chairs for days at a time, where they sleep sitting up … People defecating in trash cans and urinating on the floor or in empty food containers in shared spaces,” and several other disturbing observations.
In response, Judge Dean Pregerson last year issued a preliminary injunction which barred the county from holding anyone in the IRC for more than 24 hours and handcuffing, changing or tethering anyone to a fixed object for more than four hours.
In a motion filed by the ACLU on April 4 attorneys allege the county has failed to comply with several of Pregerson’s mandates for jail improvement.
The latest motion alleges that between March 1-15, more than 100 people were chained in the IRC’s front bench area for over four hours while awaiting a mental health evaluation. The filing also points to county provided records which showed “1,364 people in IRC over 24 hours from September 2022 to February 2023.”
“More than four decades of monitoring and litigation has resulted in an endless nightmare game of Whack-A-Mole: conditions in LA County Jails’ Inmate Reception Center (IRC) marginally improve; then stuff hits the fan; everything falls apart; and it’s a disaster in the IRC,” ACLU attorneys wrote in the filing supporting contempt of court.
Pregerson said during the hearing Wednesday that he would hold…
Read the full article here
