ACLU Calls Now Official Deal A 'Watershed Moment' As LA County Agrees To Improve Conditions At Jail Intake Facility

A settlement to improve conditions in L.A. County's long troubled jail system has been reached. The agreement between the county and the American Civil Liberties Union was announced late Friday and approved Thursday by a federal judge overseeing the case.

The agreement focuses on the Inmate Reception Center in downtown Los Angeles where the L.A. County Sheriff's processes about 120,000 people each year — including many with mental illness. Earlier this year, the ACLU asked Judge Dean Pregerson to find Los Angeles County in contempt of his earlier ruling mandating improvements at IRC.

After Pregerson approved the deal Thursday, Corene Kendrick, deputy director of the ACLU National Prison Project, called it "a watershed moment for the ACLU’s jail and prison decarceration movement.”

“This is the first time in the country a jurisdiction that we or other advocates have sued agreed that the cornerstone to addressing abysmal jail conditions and overcrowding is to reduce the number of people coming to jail in the first place and to create alternatives to incarceration," Kendrick said in a news release. "A person cannot get well in a jail cell.”

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The agreement also recognized "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," according to a news release from L.A. County when the deal was announced.

It also resolves that contempt filing with no sanctions.

LAist has reported on inspectors calling out disgusting and inhumane conditions in the county's jails.

Under this agreement, the county promises to limit how long those in custody may be held in various areas to "ensure more humane treatment." The county also promises to continue improving wait times, making conditions more sanitary and reducing overcrowding.

Julia Paskin talked to Peter Eliasberg, an ACLU attorney, this weekend about how they got to this agreement and what's next:

About those jail conditions

Let's start by describing the conditions you've found inside the reception center.

Eliasberg: They were barbaric. It’s important to understand that the reception center is not a housing unit. It’s a processing center for the jail system, but people were being backlogged and warehoused there. They were forced to sleep on cold concrete floors or metal benches for 24 to 48 hours at once. People with serious mental illnesses were being chained to the front bench for as much as 10 to 12 hours at a time. People stuck in crowded holding cells for way more time than they should possibly be left there.

The facility was also disgusting and dirty. Toilets weren’t cleaned, and there was a lack of toilet paper. They had filthy undrinkable water, if there was any water at all. It was a hell hole. We had no choice but to go to court to show how inhumane these conditions are and that they cannot continue.

Key provisions

What are the key provisions of the agreement to address those conditions?

Eliasberg: The backbone of the agreement is certain time limits.

• People cannot stay in the Inmate Reception Center for more than 24 hours.
• They cannot be kept in a holding cell for more than 12 hours.
• And people cannot be chained to the front bench for more than four hours at a time.

Again, it’s not a housing facility. They don’t get bedding or even a mattress to sleep on the floor.

I think what’s significant about this agreement — beyond those requirements — is that the County is pledged to put together plans to get at the root causes of this problem. One other thing I need to mention is many people who had mental illnesses were coming into the IRC and getting cut off [from] their medications, which is extremely dangerous and can prompt serious relapses in mental health, and even suicide.

Reducing jail population

Talk more about the provision that calls for reducing the number of people inside the jail — how will that happen?

Eliasberg: The County has now committed to staffing psychiatric staff in the Inmate Reception Center to ensure people who come in are evaluated and are provided with what’s called “bridge medication” if they have been on medication in the community. They have also pointed out that ultimately, the solution to this problem is making sure that the county jail population is lowered.

In particular, people with mental illnesses don’t do well in jails and do much better in community treatment placements. However, there currently aren’t enough of those. The county is committing to putting almost 2,000 new beds up to ensure that people with mental illness, who have previously been funneled into jails, will instead go to places where they can heal and get the treatment and care that they need.

What about other jail facilities?

This does not address other parts of the sprawling L.A. County Jail system. Describe the conditions elsewhere and your lawsuit to improve those conditions.

Eliasberg: The reality is that a crowded jail is going to be a jail with all sorts of horrific problems. So the root cause of all of this is bringing the county jail population down. The county did a study a couple of years ago with all of the partners in the justice system: the judges, the DA, the public defender, and they found that about 60% of the people with mental illness who are in jails didn’t need to be there, shouldn’t be there, and would do better elsewhere.

The problems with the treatment of people in the IRC, particularly those with mental illnesses, also show up once people get into permanent housing. A key component of addressing that is for the county to finally put its money where its mouth is, to abide by what they talk about so much: “care first, jails last.” The Board of Supervisors simply haven’t funded that, and it’s time they begin. I think that this settlement agreement and permanent injunction we’ve entered here is a real push to the county to do that. They’re committing to do that now, and we will be monitoring closely to see that they do.

Listen to the interview