On last week’s Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors agenda, Supervisor Janice Hahn expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of progress closing L.A.’s Men’s Central Jail. She called on the chairman of the county’s jail safety implementation team, Wilford Pinkney, to focus on jail closure — not safety — and to rename the effort to reflect that goal. Hahn called upon Pinkney to create a designated pathway for closure with specific timelines. The motion passed 4-0, with Supervisor Kathryn Barger abstaining.
But examining the history relating to attempts to close MCJ reveals that it is Hahn and other members of the board who must bear the responsibility for continuing to house inmates in the dungeon-like environment of MCJ.
It had long been the county’s plan to level MCJ and build another facility. In 2019 this changed. Hahn and three other board members voted to end the long-planned construction of a modern constitutionally compliant custodial treatment facility. The construction would have allowed the transfer of inmates from MCJ to the newly built facility as well as already existing ones. Two years later, Hahn joined her colleagues to implement a “Care First, Jails Last” policy that enshrined this anti-jail replacement position that embraced the activist chant, “You can’t get well in a cell.” This policy was referenced in Hahn‘s recent motion.
Tragically, the initial decision in 2019 not to replace MCJ has required inmates to continue suffering under horrific conditions. This includes structural deficiencies that have led to increased inmate suicide. This latest blame-game by Hahn cannot hide her complicity in making it impossible to close Men’s Central Jail.
While mental illness and drug addiction afflict many inmates, the supervisors refuse to accept that the criminal justice system must also provide justice for victims, protect society and provide appropriate facilities for incarceration — all three.
The present “anti-jail” ideological fixation by the board was implemented many years before Pinkney’s appointment. It has become increasingly clear over those years that shutting down MCJ without providing any additional custodial facilities would be irresponsible to both the inmates and the residents of L.A. County. Nobody contests the need to level MCJ. But the inmates at MCJ, for the most part, are considered serious and violent offenders, many awaiting trial. The vast majority cannot responsibly be released to a non-custodial setting. Also, the number of inmates in the county jail system has risen recently due to increased punishment of offenders resulting from the passage of Proposition 36.
The irony is that board action has been detrimental to those it purports to care about. Twin Towers, the present facility that houses the most mentally and physically ill, is inadequate to provide the required treatment that promotes the health of those incarcerated. It must be replaced and MCJ should be leveled. But for the board’s policy, a new modern custodial treatment facility would have already opened resulting in greater care with more inmate lives saved.
This issue needs no more study. The jail population, the highest in the nation, is filled with more mentally ill violent and serious offenders today than was in the recent past.
In spite of this stark reality, the board continues its irresponsible anti-jail policy that neither serves the public nor the inmates. Hahn is well aware of county failures to adequately provide medical and mental health care for seriously ill inmates, a majority of whom are from minority communities. Nevertheless, she chooses to scapegoat Pinkney for his inadequate pursuit of failed county policy.
Responsibly dealing with this issue requires a reality check, not a committee name change. It requires the political courage to admit you were wrong in voting never to provide inmates with a facility that would responsibly allow the demolition of Men’s Central Jail.
South Pasadenan Joseph Charney is a former Los Angeles County deputy district attorney.