{"id":25776,"date":"2020-06-09T14:23:03","date_gmt":"2020-06-09T21:23:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=25776"},"modified":"2020-06-09T14:23:03","modified_gmt":"2020-06-09T21:23:03","slug":"supervisors-aim-to-retain-lower-jail-population-post-covid-19-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=25776","title":{"rendered":"Supervisors Aim to Retain Lower Jail Population Post COVID-19 Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Los Angeles, CA\u2014Today, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously supported a\u00a0proposal\u00a0<\/a>authored by Supervisor Janice Hahn and co-authored by Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas to maintain a lower jail population after the COVID-19 crisis is over.<\/p>\n

The LA County jail system has been overcrowded for decades. While the system has capacity for 12,404 people, on any given day the seven facilities have a population of 17,000 people on average.<\/p>\n

\u201cJail overcrowding creates terrible conditions for everyone,\u201d\u00a0said Supervisor Janice Hahn.<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cNot only does overcrowding make it nearly impossible to control disease outbreaks, it creates terrible conditions for our inmates and deputies alike.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, since the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, the LA County Sheriff\u2019s Department, the courts, the Public Defender, and the District Attorney, have worked together to reduce the jail population by 5,000 people. On June 2, 2020 the total jail population was 12,026, and was as low as 11,765 on May 1, marking the first time in decades that the LA County jail system\u2019s population was lower than the capacity assigned by the Board of State and Community Corrections.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis pandemic has been devastating but it has also revealed that many of the bold ideas that so many people said were impossible were actually very possible,\u201d\u00a0said Supervisor Janice Hahn.\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cOur jails have been overcrowded for decades but the last two months have proven that many people have said for a long time \u2013 there are thousands of people in our jails who do not need to be there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a\u00a0motion<\/a>\u00a0by Supervisor Janice Hahn and co-authored by Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas designed to retain this lower jail population long after the COVID-19 crisis is over.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe County must build on this unprecedented progress in keeping the population down in our\u00a0jails\u00a0\u2013\u00a0down from 17,000 to 12,000 individuals in less than two months\u00a0\u2013\u00a0by\u00a0rethinking\u00a0how to safely serve thousands of individuals in a more cost-effective,\u00a0rehabilitative\u00a0and humane manner,\u201d\u00a0said\u00a0Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas.\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cIt took a\u00a0pandemic\u00a0to alleviate overcrowding and get us into compliance with the state\u2019s requirements, which is a powerful statement about\u00a0the criminal justice system\u2019s\u00a0resistance to change. Yet, we remain undeterred. This is the right moment for the County to renew its\u00a0commitment to ending over-incarceration, expanding alternatives to incarceration, scaling the work of the Office of Diversion and Reentry, and addressing racial inequity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn response to the COVID pandemic, a group of justice partners came together and worked hard to reduce the population in the county jail by more than 30%,\u201d\u00a0said Judge Peter Espinoza, Director of the Office of Diversion and Reentry.\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cThese decisions were made in a collaborative fashion with the intent of removing those most vulnerable to the virus while taking into account community safety. It\u2019s time for those same partners to come together and have a frank discussion about what we learned in that process and what actions we can take going forward, and what systems of care we can build, to keep the jail population down.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the motion passed today, the Board of Supervisors has requested that the Los Angeles County Sheriff\u2019s Department, the Office of Diversion and Reentry, and other stakeholders provide a report to the Board of Supervisors in 60 days on their plan post-COVID19 to maintain a reduced jail population beneath the Board of State and Community Corrections rated capacity while continuing to protect public safety and ensuring appropriate services for individuals released early or diverted from incarceration. This report back will include:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. A protocol for warm hand-offs to post-release placements<\/li>\n
  2. Additions and expansions needed to the County\u2019s system of care that can provide alternative placements to incarceration \u2013 community-based whenever possible \u2013 including for individuals experiencing homelessness, individuals with serious mental illness, and individuals suffering from substance abuse<\/li>\n
  3. Legislative changes that the County could pursue and advocate for to help maintain a reduced jail population<\/li>\n
  4. Plans to reduce the number of inmates admitted on a daily basis<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The Board also directed the County\u2019s CEO, in consultation with the Sheriff and Auditor Controller, to report back in 60 days with an analysis of any cost savings that have or will be generated in the future through a reduced jail population.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Los Angeles, CA\u2014Today, the Los Angeles...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ca-local"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25776"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25777,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25776\/revisions\/25777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}