Los Angeles – The violence that rocked Los Angeles County’s jail system last week is the legacy of operating jails on the cheap – with violent inmates living in large, open rooms despite wide agreement nationally that such offenders should be held in cells.
Sheriff’s Department officials freely acknowledge that the practice has worsened racially charged disturbances in the jails, where violent incidents have increased significantly since 2003.
But officials say they have not had the money or the staffing to shift many of the high-risk inmates to newer facilities with cells, which require more guards.
As a result, the department has 6,500 jail beds in cells designed for high-risk offenders – but they are either empty or used for lower-risk inmates because the agency says it doesn’t have the deputies to staff them.
New York City and Chicago, among other places with large jail systems, do it differently – each maintaining a large percentage of cells available and using them for maximum-security inmates.
Moreover, the agencies there have far more deputies guarding inmates per capita than the L.A. Sheriff’s Department.
At the Cook County Jail in Chicago, for example, one officer monitors each group of 48 high- risk inmates. All can be locked down in two-person cells.
By contrast, at the Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic, Calif., where rioting claimed the life of one inmate and injured nearly 100 others, one deputy watches as many as 400 inmates.
Those inmates are broken into smaller but still large rooms, arranged around a guard station. These dorms do not have individual cells.
Overall, Los Angeles County has 3,000 deputies and civilian assistants to police a jail system with 21,000 inmates a day. Cook County has 2,900 correctional officers for 10,000 inmates. New York has 9,300 officers guarding 14,000 inmates.
The vast majority of inmates in the Los Angeles County system live in dorms, barracks or pods, some housing more than 100 prisoners.
The only facilities with a significant number of smaller cells – housing one to 10 people – are Men’s Central and the Twin Towers Correctional Facility, across the street from each other downtown.
For the eighth straight day, violence erupted Saturday at the sprawling Castaic jail complex that has seen a surge in racially motivated rioting.
Initial reports indicated four inmates suffered minor injuries when fighting broke out about 4 p.m. in a dormitory at the North County Correctional Facility.
The fighting was quickly controlled, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department officials. They said it occurred in a dorm housing 80 inmates.
