Judge Asked to Order Change at Crowded Jail

The American Civil Liberties Union asked a federal judge Wednesday to order the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to stop housing jail inmates in cramped rooms without beds.

Accusing the department of creating “unspeakable conditions” at the downtown Inmate Reception Center, lawyers for the ACLU of Southern California said 30 to 40 inmates are being held in cells so small that they must take turns sleeping on the floor or on chairs or benches.

Inmates spend up to four days under those conditions before they are transferred to more suitable housing, the ACLU alleged.

U.S. District Judge Dean D. Pregerson agreed to hear the complaint today in his Los Angeles courtroom.

Concerns about the Inmate Reception Center are the latest in a series of allegations of mismanagement in the nation’s largest jail system, the scene of deadly race riots earlier this year. Three inmates have been slain in the jails in the last year, 12 since 2000. In May, Pregerson toured the adjacent Men’s Central Jail and said he found conditions “not consistent with basic human values.”

The judge was concerned that inmates were held in cramped cells 24 hours a day, with only irregular access to an exercise yard. After that tour, the department agreed to reduce the number of inmates in such cells and moved hundreds from that jail to others.

Reducing the capacity at Men’s Central, however, contributed to the problems at the Inmate Reception Center, a separate jail facility where inmates are processed into the system, sheriff’s officials said.

“The department has fewer options to house the growing number of inmates,” said sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore. “Yes, this situation is not optimal, but it will improve, especially as we continue to add deputies and open facilities.”

stuart.pfeifer@latimes.com