COUNTY JAILS RECEIVE WARNING; HANDLING OF MENTALLY ILL RATED SUBSTANDARD.

Byline: Lee Condon Daily News Staff Writer

Mentally ill inmates in Los Angeles County jails are treated so poorly that the U.S. Department of Justice has labeled the conditions unconstitutional in a report released Friday.

As a result, county officials were put on notice by the Justice Department that if the problems are not resolved, the department may sue the county to force it to comply with the federal Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act.

``The jail fails to identify adequately inmates with serious mental illnesses and does not adequately treat those inmates it has identified as mentally ill,'' according to the report written by Isabelle Katz Pinzler, acting assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division of the justice department. ``Some inmates with mental illnesses enter the jail without their illness being discovered; others report the mental illness, but are then `lost' in the jail system, misclassified and placed in unsafe housing.''

Pinzler wrote that the treatment received by mentally ill inmates is ``below constitutional minimum standards.''

Justice Department investigators toured the county jails in late August 1996, when the inmate population was 18,500.

The Justice Department also reported that mentally ill inmates are ``subject to an unacceptably high risk of physical abuse and other mistreatment at the hands of other inmates and custody staff.''

The report also reads: ``We have received numerous reports from inmates and advocates regarding serious physical abuse of inmates in mental health housing by other inmates and sheriff's deputies, including kicks, punches, beatings and sexual assaults.''

Among the Department of Justice findings about mentally ill inmates:

They are housed in poor conditions.

They are not allowed to participate in programs with other inmates and only spend a short time each day outside their cells.

They are the victims of predatory behavior at the hands of other inmates.

They have been abused by other inmates.

The jails do not provide enough protection to inmates who are suicidal.

Zev Yaroslavsky, the chairman of the county Board of Supervisors, declined to comment on the report, having received it late Friday with no chance to review its contents.

Undersheriff Jerry Harper said the Sheriff's Department, which manages the jail system, said the department is trying to work with the Department of Justice to avert the filing of a civil rights lawsuit and to correct problems in dealing with mentally ill inmates.

``We've already done some of the things they have suggested,'' Harper said. ``Obviously there are still a number of deficiencies.''

Harper said the biggest problem is a lack of resources, with the jails not having enough medical and regular staff to handle mentally ill inmates properly.

Earlier this year the department made a number of changes, including giving sheriff's deputies additional training in dealing with mentally ill patients.

In addition the jail now has deputies, not other inmates, escort mentally ill patients when they must be moved from one part of the jail to the next.