Activists Frustrated With County’s 5-Year Plan To Close ‘Uninhabitable’ Men’s Central Jail

It’s been nearly three years since L.A. County received a plan to close the aging downtown Men’s Central Jail. The 145-page proposal called the facility "unsafe, crowded and crumbling."

Now, the county is looking at a possible five-year timeline that community activists say isn’t fast enough.

The five-year timeline presented at this week's board of supervisors meeting calls for 1,200 new mental health and supportive housing beds per year and for the courts to find a way to safely release an additional 7,000 people a year, among other provisions.

Songhai Armstead, executive director of L.A. County’s Justice, Care and Opportunities Department and a retired Superior Court judge, presented the timeline to supervisors.

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“I believe personally that the conditions of the Men’s Central Jail are uninhabitable, they are not OK,” Armstead said.

In the past, the county has said it could not safely close the jail without first ensuring that community-based care is in place. For years, groups including Justice LA and Dignity and Power Now have been pushing elected leaders to do just that.

“There is a real roadmap for the county, they just have refused to actually implement it. And they spent years asking for more and more reports and roadmaps,” Janet Asante, of Dignity and Power Now, told LAist.

While Asante is not satisfied with the five-year timeline, she said supervisors’ apparent frustration at the progress on jail closure does give her hope.

Board chair Lindsey Horvath said at the supervisors’ meeting that she wants to see the county move toward a clearer plan on how to close the more than 60-year-old facility.

“In many cases it’s not safe for inmates to be housed there nor our staff to work there as has been stated many times,” Horvath said. “Closing Men’s Central Jail is complex and we have to do it thoughtfully, but we have to do it.”

While population needs are continually in flux, 40% of people incarcerated in the L.A. County jail system have mental health needs based on the latest count in February 2023, according to the sheriff’s department. That’s down from a high of 41% in 2022 and up from 27% in 2017.