By Jason Henry
Los Angeles Daily News
LOS ANGELES — Responding to a surge in jail deaths over the past year, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday called on the Sheriff’s Department and other agencies to implement a series of wide-ranging reforms.
Ten inmates have died in custody so far this year. That follows 46 deaths in 2025, the second deadliest in the past two decades.
The supervisors passed the reforms on a 4-0 vote, with Supervisor Kathryn Barger abstaining. Written by Supervisor Janice Hahn, the motion demands more thorough security screenings and safety checks at the jails, consistent monitoring of surveillance cameras and better access to drug treatment and drug reversal medications.
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“This effort is about increasing accountability, acting with urgency, and doing better — now,” Hahn said in a statement.
The measure also directs Correctional Health Services to work with the Chief Executive Office to request funding for an electronic health system to track medical appointments, reduce delays in treatment and to more efficiently follow up on inmates’ health requests.
The majority of deaths within L.A. County’s custody are classified as “natural,” though activists and families dispute the accuracy of that description because some inmates don’t get the medical treatment they need.
Correctional Health Services also must report back on what would be needed to hire an outside consultant to “evaluate recent deaths, identify trends and provide recommendations and best practices to reduce in-custody deaths.”
A second motion passed by the board at the same meeting directed the Community Safety Implementation Team to return to its old name, the Jail Closure Implementation Team, and to include in its next quarterly report specific timelines for closing the long troubled Men’s Central Jail.
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The supervisors formally began the process of closing the Men’s Central Jail in 2021, but progress has been slow and faced numerous setbacks, including a spike in the jails’ population following the passage of Proposition 36, which increased penalties for certain drug and theft crimes.
“Just as the 2021 motion indicated, the closure of MCJ has been studied, data collected, modeling tools created and used, yet plans for closure fall short and the County is left with reports back summarizing discussions about what comes next,” the motion reads. “What is lacking and continues to lack as evident by the continued, ominous presence of MCJ, is having specific plans with achievable and measurable metrics and timelines to hold the work towards jail closure accountable.”
Barger abstained from both votes.
“I have consistently called for a modern replacement facility focused on treatment and rehabilitation because that is where the real solution lies,” Barger said of the first motion. “This motion focuses narrowly on reducing jail deaths, which is a symptom of a much deeper issue. Until we address the root causes, including the need for appropriate treatment infrastructure, we will not see lasting change.”
Her spokesperson, Helen Chavez Garcia, said Barger abstained on the jail closure motion as she believed the directives are “micromanagement.”
L.A. County Sheriff Robert Luna has similarly called for a new “correctional care center” for months, and his department requested $1.2 million to study that possibility during budget presentations in February. The current jails were not designed for a population with such severe mental health challenges, officials said.
The Sheriff’s Department estimates about 50% of its inmates suffer from some type of mental illness.
During the meeting, advocates urged the board to pass both motions and condemned the idea of building a new jail. The supervisors have consistently stressed their support for a “care first, jails last” model and believe closing the Men’s Central Jail without a replacement is part of that mandate, advocates said.
“If you end your term without completing this mandate, you have neglected your duties as public servants,” said Janet Asante, a member of Justice L.A. and Dignity & Power Now.
Helen Jones, the mother of John Horton, who died in the Men’s Central Jail in 2009, asked the board how many more people have to die before the jail is closed.
“I’ve been watching mother after mother, family after family, for 17 years, go through the exact same thing that I’ve been through,” she said.
Last year, the Southern California News Group analyzed more than a thousand pages of lawsuits, audits, coroner reports and investigative reviews related to in-custody deaths. The review found that someone died in custody in the jails of Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties every five days on average and detailed instances of institutional neglect and failed supervision.
In one example, a 61-year-old man was listed as dying of “multiple organ failure” and heart disease in March 2023 by the Los Angeles County medical examiner’s department, yet a review by an oversight agency found that he had presented with hypothermia and a body temperature of 87.6 degrees after heating systems failed in Los Angeles’ downtown jails.
The California Department of Justice sued Los Angeles County in September over what Attorney General Rob Bonta described as “unsafe and unconstitutional conditions.”
That case, which has been shuffled between county and federal courts, is still pending.
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