Rina Palta

Lobbyists for L.A. County appeared at the state capitol Thursday to ask for help funding a proposed $1.8 billion overhaul of the local jail system.

Since her election as District Attorney, Jackie Lacey has staked out diverting mentally ill out of the criminal justice system as one of her top priorities.

In a 3-1 vote, with one abstention, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors OK'd a plan to build a new county jail focused on mental health treatment.

The L.A. County Board of Supervisors will meet Tuesday to discuss plans to replace the decrepit Men’s Central Jail. The project could be one of the costliest in L.A.'s history.

Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies assigned to check on a suicidal Twin Towers inmate left him alone for nearly three hours, in violation of department protocol.

John Winkler's family filed the claim Tuesday. The sheriff's department said he was accidentally killed by deputies when they mistook him for a kidnapping suspect. A county official said he wants to resolve it quickly.

A new trauma recovery center in Long Beach opened this month with the goal of providing counseling services to crime victims who don't usually seek help.

L.A. County is desperately trying to find homes for kids with mental illness, who are often bumped around the foster care system and at high risk for poverty and incarceration. It has embarked on an effort to recruit 140 more foster parents.

A blue ribbon commission report on the ills of L.A. County's foster care system received a mixed reception at the Board of Supervisors Tuesday. The panel voted to study it further and revisit the issue on May 20.

A pilot program to replace strip searchers with body scanners at L.A.'s county is intended to reduce tension between inmates and deputies. It comes as use of force incidents rose slightly over last year.

Murder charges have been filed against a man accused of holding three people hostage in a West Hollywood apartment.

The report concluded: "In eight months of hearing hundreds of hours of testimony, the Commission never heard a single person defend our current child safety system." Officials reacting to the report say the entire child welfare system needs to be changed.