The Los Angeles County Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission will vote Thursday on a motion to require the Sheriff’s Department to provide quarterly online reports about conditions inside the county jails and its efforts to improve them.
The problem
The jails are desperately overcrowded — nearly 15,000 incarcerated people reside in a system approved by the state for about 12,500. Over 40% of those people have mental health needs.Last September, the ACLU filed an emergency court filingasking a federal judge to order immediate improvements in the “abysmal” conditions at the Inmate Reception Center. The group cited a litany of abuses, including the shackling of detainees with serious mental illness to chairs “for days at a time.”
A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order soon after requiring the Sheriff’s Department to improve conditions, but problems persist.
The backstory
LAist has covered numerous angles of the problem — from flooding, broken elevators and buses preventing people from making their court hearings to the plight of jail health care workers who call the jails situation a daily “human rights disaster,” along with efforts to get books into cells to improve literacy rates and reduce recidivism.
What’s next
The commission will vote Thursday on whether to require the Sheriff’s Department to produce the quarterly online report, which would have to cover a variety of issues, including the department’s efforts to reduce overcrowding and its efforts to release pregnant and postpartum people to diversion or other community-based programs.
How to watch the meeting: The meeting starts…
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