The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES- Sheriff’s officials defended recent tactics that included taking mattresses away from inmates and ordering them to strip used in an effort to quell two weeks of racial violence in the Los Angeles County jail system.
More than 100 inmates at Pitchess Detention Center spent much of Feb. 9 naked, without their mattresses and left with only blankets to cover themselves. The punishment was an attempt to calm inmates who had repeatedly attacked each other, even after privileges such as access to mail, television and phones were taken away, said Sammy Jones, chief of the custody division.
Sheriff Lee Baca said Friday that he supported the move, as long as it was over a short term. He said keeping inmates naked was at the “outer edge of our core values” but was done to save lives.
The violence began Feb. 4 with a riot at a jail in northern Los Angeles County that left a black inmate dead. Another black inmate collapsed and died Sunday after a small fight at a downtown jail. The fighting mostly involved black and Hispanic inmates.
Sheriff’s officials will ask the district attorney’s office next week to file charges against 21 inmates allegedly involved in the violence. Some could face murder charges, authorities said.
Jones said the harsh treatment of inmates worked. The measures were taken in three dorms where there was no new violence following the decision to strip inmates who were given clothing the next day.
“I know (his) motives were to save lives,” Baca said of Jones. “The victims of these fights should have had their dignity protected.”
Mark Rosenbaum, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said the revelations about safety concerns in the dorms, as well as the stripping of inmates as punishment, point to a “huge systemic problem” in a jail system that holds about 19,000 inmates.
“They don’t have the staffing and the facilities to operate a detention and incarceration system according to professional standards,” Rosenbaum said. “These are procedures they’re making up as they go along because the staffing and facilities and other professional measures are not in place.”