No-holds-barred on jails

It took about eight weeks, but the new seven-member commission charged with investigating Los Angeles County’s troubled jails is now up and running. Early in the new year, we hope, it will begin in earnest to study just what’s gone right and what’s gone wrong during Sheriff Lee Baca’s tenure as steward of the jails.

Clearly there is a problem. The FBI is investigating multiple allegations of misconduct by sheriff’s deputies. The Times has reported on numerous cases of abuse and violence by deputies, including a rookie who resigned after he was allegedly told by his supervisor to beat a mentally ill inmate. And over the last two years, about 30 deputies had to be disciplined for beating inmates or covering up abuse. One jail monitor said she witnessed deputies beating an inmate even after he was obviously unconscious.

The new commission’s influence is severely limited. It can’t subpoena documents or impose changes on the sheriff. Baca is an elected official — only the voters can fire him. But though it is toothless in some respects, the commission has an important role to play. It can raise public awareness of the problems and pressure the sheriff and the Board of Supervisors to take action. It can provide a road map for change. Perhaps most important, its members — four retired judges, a pastor, a police chief and a jail safety expert — can ask questions long overdue of a department in need of accountability.

They should probe, for instance, whether the Sheriff’s Department properly monitors its deputies. The department’s database is supposed to provide an early warning system to alert supervisors about deputies who are repeatedly accused of using excessive force, says the monitor who oversees the jails for the Board of Supervisors. But Chief Dennis Burns, who heads the jails’ custody division, says the current system does not track inmate complaints by deputy.

The commission should also look into allegations by a 32-year veteran who retired last year, who said he ordered in-depth audits of some complaints. Those reports, he said, concluded that some deputies were crafting narratives “dramatized to justify” force and delaying using weapons such as pepper spray that could end fights “to dispense appropriate jailhouse ‘justice.’”

Another question is whether rookie deputies — whose first assignment in the Sheriff’s Department is to serve as guards in the jails — receive sufficient training and supervision to keep them from relying on force as the first option in responding to an incident.

The commission can’t force change, but a thorough, no-holds-barred investigation could put real pressure on Baca to take action. Clearly, that pressure is needed.