Los Angeles County’s Men’s Central Jail is a hellhole in need of razing.
It’s filthy beyond belief, and in such disrepair that it’s incredibly dangerous both for its inmates and the sheriff’s deputies who guard them.
Because of the nature of who gets incarcerated in the nation’s largest county, it’s really much more of a mental hospital for the most troubled and destitute people in the world. Deputies are not mental-health professionals. Bad outcomes are the rule.
From the outside, the massive Brutalist concrete edifice downtown appears, well, not so bad for a jail. Appearances can be deceiving.
The need for it to be gone has been clear for years — years of inaction from a conflicted Board of Supervisors. If we’re being charitable, that lack of collective will to actually do something about it — tear it down and find alternatives to one big lockup; tear it down and simply rebuild — is understandable, given the complex national conversation about our justice system in the wake of both too many police killings and too much violence in our cities’ streets.
But in the clear light of day, as Californians seek to find middle ground between the extremes of “defund the police and eliminate jails and prisons” and “lock ‘em all up,” one thing is certain: Los Angeles County needs a jail. A big one. Just a better one.
“The pendulum has swung,” Supervisor Holly Mitchell said last week — swung toward recognition that no jail at all is not a rational solution for the future.
Sheriff Robert Luna and his top Men’s Central officials disabused the board of the notion that creative alternatives such as diversion and little jails spread throughout the community are any real answer. He told supervisors that three-quarters of county inmates are facing charges too serious for diversion programs, the Los Angeles Times reports.
“I felt like we finally broke through the discussion of why it’s needed and justification as to why it’s needed, because numbers don’t lie,” Supervisor Kathryn Barger told the Times. “A replacement has to take place.”
Yes, it does. Tear down the bad place, and build a new one on the same property. Make it a better place for the jailed and the jailers. Waste no more time on the whether or not. Do it now.
