ACLU ASKS JUDGE TO HELP COUNTY FIX JAIL PROBLEMS.Byline: TROY ANDERSON Staff Writer After a spate of homicides and weeks of rioting at Men's Central Jail, the ACLU ACLU: see American Civil Liberties Union. asked a federal judge Thursday to work with Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. County on a plan to reduce overcrowding overcrowding overcrowding of animal accommodation. Many countries now publish codes of practice which define what the appropriate volumetric allowances should be for each species of animal when they are housed indoors. Breaches of these codes is overcrowding. and staffing shortages in the nation's largest jail. In the three-decade-old lawsuit, the American Civil Liberties Union American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), nonpartisan organization devoted to the preservation and extension of the basic rights set forth in the U.S. Constitution. asked U.S. District Judge Dean Pregerson to conduct an unannounced tour of the facility. "It's a ticking time bomb due to conditions of gross overcrowding and understaffing whereby inmates are stacked like mice in tiny cells in a state of nearly 24-hour lockdown Lockdown A specified period when an employee of a public company is barred from selling - and occasionally buying - their company's stock. Notes: These types of equity transaction restrictions can be imposed by securities regulators or underwriting firms if a company has ," said ACLU Legal Director Mark Rosenbaum. "The bottom line is that no one is truly safe in Men's Central Jail." Despite the Board of Supervisors' vote last month directing staff See: exercise directing staff. to proceed with a $300 million to $500 million plan to curb violence and overcrowding in the jail system, the ACLU claims there is no plan to assure the safety of inmates and deputies. "Since the riots, the county and the Sheriff's Department have been under pressure to improve conditions and avoid another violent outbreak in the jails. But the proposals they have presented to the Board of Supervisors will not come close to solving the deeply rooted, underlying problems in the jail," said Jody Kent, coordinator of the ACLU's jails project. "Thus far, the sheriff has only offered Band-Aid solutions like releasing inmates early. We believe the court must be involved to ensure long-term, positive changes." Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said officials are addressing the problems and have moved high-security inmates out of the facility to the Twin Towers Correctional Facility The Twin Towers Correctional Facility, also referred to in the media as Twin Towers Jail, is a complex erected in Los Angeles, California to house inmates of the Los Angeles County Courts. It is the world’s largest jail. . "This all has to do with reducing the number of inmates proportionate to deputy sheriffs, as well as putting them in a more appropriate housing situation for the level of risk that they pose," Whitmore said. In preparing the request, the ACLU contacted an independent expert, Toni V. Bair, who served as a warden at a maximum-security prison in Virginia. Bair noted that the jail's staff-to-inmate ratio - 1-to-10 - is unsafe and more than double the accepted national standard of 1-to-4. troy.anderson(at)dailynews.com (213) 974-8985 |
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