It’s Only Humane

Finally, after years of being very patient and very reasonable, a federal judge has set firm deadlines to relieve the severe and chronic overcrowding of the Los Angeles County Jail system. He is right.

The situation is appalling. There are not enough bunks, so hundreds of inmates sleep on mattresses on the roof when the weather is warm, otherwise on the floor. Holding cells have standing room only.

U.S. District Judge William Gray has given the county until Friday to provide at least a seat for every inmate placed in a holding cell, until next month to put the plan into effect and until the first of the year to reduce substantially the population of Men’s Central, the largest jail in the nation, so that every inmate has a bed to sleep on. Nothing fancy, just a bunk, a seat on a bench and a little more breathing room. That is only humane.

The deadlines are not hasty. The judge made his original ruling years ago in response to a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union. Since then, the county’s jail population has swelled beyond 22,000 inmates in facilities designed to hold about half that number. The numbers are expected to get worst due to higher bails and longer sentences.

More beds would help. The county has built 4,287 bunks since the judge’s original order. And more beds are planned. But beds alone can’t solve chronic overcrowding. The steady growth outpaces construction.

The real solution lies in the courts. Sheriff Sherman Block and the ACLU lawyers want to find a faster way to process men through the courts. Nearly 60% of the jail inmates are awaiting court action.

Adding criminal judges would quicken the pace. The State Judicial Council has recommended 120 new judgeships, but the cost is beyond the county’s limited budget. New state legislation, the Trial Court Funding Act, would provide 14 additional Superior Court judges, but only if the sitting judges and the county supervisors join the new and complicated system. Some relief will come with the loan of four judges from Municipal Court.

There is another way to accelerate court action: Expand the use of night courts. The recommendation came from the ACLU, and the Municipal Court already has agreed to triple its night court participation next month. The Superior Court should follow suit. It is expensive and inconvenient, but there is, in this emergency, no alternative.

There are also administrative changes that can be implemented to speed the court process. Civil judges can be reassigned to criminal cases, a plan already being tried, albeit with mixed results, by the Superior Court. In the long run, of course, a balance must be maintained so that neither the civil nor the criminal calendar is so delayed that justice is denied. Low-risk prisoners should be permitted freedom pending trial rather than adding them to the jail glut. That procedure can be helped with electronic monitoring detention devices, one of 10 current suggestions by George Trammell, presiding judge of the Municipal Court.

Judge Gray is forcing Los Angeles County to do what it should have done long since. A similar crisis in the jails of Orange County was resolved only after the board of supervisors and sheriff had been held in contempt and fined. The court intervention forced the construction and planning of additional facilities. Sheriff Block has received commendation for administration of the Los Angeles jails. But without adequate facilities, and a faster-paced court system, his is an impossible assignment.