Readers React: Don’t build a new county jail until reforms are in place first
- Share via
To the editor: Bad jails will get less bad, less crowded and safer if Los Angeles County starts using long-standing strategies to reduce the inmate population while it develops experience with the reductions and diversions being newly considered. Then it will know what facilities we need. (“Men’s Central Jail should be demolished. But what should replace it?,” editorial, Jan. 4)
Building a replacement for Men’s Central Jail now using plans made in 2013 without first implementing reforms is perpetuating, not reversing, what the editorial correctly identifies as a “jail-first approach.”
Decades of experience have shown that building before implementing reforms leads to more incarceration and basically unchanged rates of crime. Services decline because of budget crunches made worse by annual construction bond payments. The four L.A. County supervisors who were state legislators ought to know that well.
This time, let’s do first things first and implement reforms before new jail construction.
Joseph Maizlish, Los Angeles
Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook
A cure for the common opinion
Get thought-provoking perspectives with our weekly newsletter.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
More From the Los Angeles Times
Podcasts
John Orr was a renowned fire investigator who was also a prolific arsonist, and whose thinly veiled novel helped to convict him. In this episode we hear from the fire captain who first suspected him—and from Orr himself.
Tom Girardi was a legal legend—until he was found guilty of stealing millions from his own clients. Host Madison McGhee and pop culture commentator Kiki Monique unpack how his downfall became a Real Housewives scandal, and what Erika Jayne may or may not have known. Plus, L.A. Times reporter Harriet Ryan joins to share how she helped bring Girardi’s crimes to light.
NPR climate editor Sadie Babits talks about why the media has long overlooked the climate crisis, and how that’s starting to change.
