The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES- Los Angeles County will build space for 2,000 more inmates and reopen an old women’s facility under a $258 million plan to ease overcrowding and violence in county jails.
The program approved Tuesday by the board of supervisors will increase jail capacity countywide to 21,195 inmates. And closed-circuit monitoring cameras and other security improvements would be added at existing jails.
Two were killed and hundreds injured this year in a series of riots between black and Hispanic inmates, and a federal judge has ordered the county to reduce crowding at the downtown Men’s Central Jail. In addition, the county has been forced to release thousands of convicted criminals early because of overcrowding.
Besides adding 2,024 beds over the next three years, the plan calls for reopening the long-shuttered Sybil Brand Institute for Women, the old jail for females in Monterey Park, despite objections from nearby residents.
The county also will end a program in which the state pays for some 1,300 parole violators to be housed in local jails, thus freeing up much-needed beds for county prisoners.