California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta says the state will sue the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department and its sheriff, Robert Luna, for what the state official called a “humanitarian crisis” inside of the county jails.
Inmates are housed in unsafe, dirty facilities infested with roaches and rats, Bonta said in a news conference Monday, and lack basic access to clean water and edible food. “More alarming, people are dying,” he said.
There have been over 205 in-custody deaths in four years, Bonta said, with 40% caused by suicide, homicides and overdoses. He called for comprehensive reform, but said the county forced his hand by refusing to comply.
“I’d prefer collaboration over litigation, but the county has left us with no choice, so litigation it is,” he said.
L.A. County, which houses the largest jail system in the country, has long been criticized for poor conditions. As it has expanded to hold around 13,000 people on any given day, decades — perhaps a century — of mistreatment and overcrowding has been documented.
The system lost a federal lawsuit in 1978 after decades of dirty, mold-ridden and overcrowded jails prompted inmates to fight back through the courts, and frequently faces suits alleging it fails to provide proper food, water and shelter.
The state’s lawsuit comes amid a struggle to close and replace Men’s Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles, from which inspectors regularly document poor conditions: mold, mildew, insufficient food and water and, more recently, a report last year that said jailers were too busy watching an “explicit video” to notice a noose hung inside a cell.
The difficulty in closing the jail stems from its tendency to be overbooked, officials have said. But in-custody deaths this year are on track to set a record — 36 have been reported, about one a week, according to the county’s website.
Inmates set fires in rooms with no smoke alarms — not to cause mischief, but to cook and supplement cold, sometimes inedible meals.
Most inmates, who are recently arrested and unconvicted, are left to sleep on urine-soaked floors with trash bags as blankets without access to medications and working plumbing. A 2022 lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union called the conditions “medieval.”
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