Sybil Brand Releases
* One evening recently, I was at Sybil Brand to observe a lineup. I was disturbed to find that women are being released from custody at 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. and with no apparent assistance to reach home, relatives or a safe place. The jail is in East Los Angeles, some distance from any main thoroughfare. Taxis stand waiting to pick up passengers, and I think there is a bus stop in the vicinity--both of which are helpful if the woman has money for transportation. A young girl from Bakersfield was released, far from home, with no one to meet her and was obviously distressed.
What I’m suggesting is that the Sheriff’s Department change its policy of releasing women at night. Releasing women during the day, say, after breakfast, would be a much more humane way of handling these discharges--especially from an institution named for a woman who cared so deeply about the treatment of women prisoners.
MARLO WARREN
Los Angeles
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