SCENE OF THE CRIME : Grime and Misdemeanors

It’s Everynight at the L.A. County Jail. Fifty or so men, just booked, just a fraction of the day’s criminal parade, stand in a single, sullen line. At the head of this procession, the men strip and turn their clothes over to a gloved trusty. Next comes a cavity search, jail garb and a cell.

The clothes get put away, too, but unlike most of their owners, when they leave the pokey, they’ll be a little bit better off: County is the only jail in the United States that cleans the clothes of incoming prisoners.

Cleaning and storing clothes for the 24,000 prisoners is an Augean labor that makes full use of what county officials say is the largest dry cleaning plant in the world. An average of 500 men arrive every day, which means the trusties and civilians in the quarter-acre clothes-handling operation are responsible for 75,000 pieces of clothes, tens of thousands of shoes and hats and belts. Three of the plant’s four huge machines (one is broken and would cost $8,000 to repair) run constantly, five days a week.

The shoes alone fill much of one wall, many of them red tennies and blue tennies. “Those are gang colors, so even the non-gang prisoners give us those shoes in here,”explains night supervisor Ronald Pinkney. Men with shoes whose insteps contain supports that could be fashioned into shivs must surrender these potential weapons, too. Shoeless prisoners are issued brown prison slippers.

The workers do sometimes misplace clothes, something that’s generally discovered only when the prisoners leave the jail. “We understand after they’ve been jerked around by the system and then they’re ready to leave and we can’t find their clothes, they’re upset,” says Vernell Brown, daytime supervisor. “We try not to take it personally.”

Transvestites’ clothes are far less likely to get lost: Prison officials won’t say why, but dresses, high heels, boas and such are kept in a separate room. The clothes of the rich and infamous are also stored apart, safe in an old, padlocked blue armoire. Eric Menendez’s black-and-white sweater has been here for years. Clothes belonging to Raymond Buckey, Charles Manson, “Nightstalker” Richard Ramirez, Charles Keating (“very expensive suits,” notes Pinckney), the Onion Field Killers and the Hillside Strangler were kept here.

What about the prison’s most celebrated suspect, OJ. Simpson? His four suits are kept in Judge Lance Ito’s chambers.