{"id":14125,"date":"2025-10-20T13:47:33","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T13:47:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/14125\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T13:47:33","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T13:47:33","slug":"california-sues-l-a-county-over-inhumane-jail-conditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/14125\/","title":{"rendered":"California sues L.A. County over ‘inhumane’ jail conditions"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Cayla Mihalovich<\/a>, CalMatters<\/p>\n

This story was originally published by CalMatters<\/a>. Sign up<\/a> for their newsletters.<\/p>\n

Citing \u201cinhumane conditions\u201d and a \u201cshocking rate of deaths,\u201d Attorney General Rob Bonta on Monday announced that the state is suing Los Angeles County over conditions in its jail system.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t wait any longer,\u201d Bonta said at a press conference. \u201cWe need comprehensive reform and we need it now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lawsuit, filed on Monday, seeks to compel the Los Angeles County Sheriff\u2019s Department and Correctional Health Services to implement widespread changes, including to its health care, conditions of confinement and grievance procedures.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur lawsuit will be the driving impetus to make those changes reality,\u201d said Bonta. \u201cEvery person in custody deserves safety, health care, dignity.\u201d<\/p>\n

About 14,000 people on average<\/a> are housed in L.A.\u2019s jail on a daily basis. The state\u2019s lawsuit said they have been exposed to rat infestations, spoiled meals and no clean water.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Over the past decade, nearly 40% of deaths in the Los Angeles County jails were caused by preventable circumstances, the lawsuit said. According to the lawsuit, three dozen custody deaths have already taken place in Los Angeles County jails this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Despite decades of court monitoring over Los Angeles County jails, perilous conditions and constitutional violations continue to persist, the lawsuit stated. Meanwhile, the county has spent millions of dollars to defend and settle litigation regarding those violations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of addressing root causes or devoting resources to resolving acknowledged violations, Defendants have engaged in a longstanding pattern of resisting oversight and accountability,\u201d the state attorney general\u2019s office wrote in the complaint.<\/p>\n

The Los Angeles system is the state\u2019s largest, operating eight jails throughout the county. The county is one of several that has faced scrutiny for poor conditions and preventable deaths. The state last year appointed an official charged with investigating jail deaths<\/a> and Bonta\u2019s office previously opened a civil rights inquiry focused on the Riverside County jail<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And, last year, CalMatters reported that deaths in local jails increased<\/a> even as their population declined because of changes to state sentencing laws.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a written statement<\/a>, Los Angeles Sheriff Robert Luna said his department is working to comply with multiple settlement agreements related to jail conditions and with the California Department of Justice. <\/p>\n

“Despite ongoing challenges, including a rising inmate population and an aging Men\u2019s Central Jail, our staff have remained committed to providing constitutional, humane care to those in our custody,” he said. “We are not waiting for mandates, we are proactively advancing reforms to build a safer, more accountable custody environment. I\u2019m proud of the progress we\u2019ve made and confident in our ability to continue delivering meaningful change for our community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cayla Mihalovich is a California Local News fellow.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on CalMatters<\/a> and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives<\/a> license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Cayla Mihalovich, CalMatters This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters. Citing \u201cinhumane…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[724,48,52,51,47,137,50,49,2794],"class_list":{"0":"post-14125","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-criminal-justice","9":"tag-la","10":"tag-la-headlines","11":"tag-la-news","12":"tag-los-angeles","13":"tag-los-angeles-county","14":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","15":"tag-los-angeles-news","16":"tag-rob-bonta"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}