Prisoner protection from outside: visits to jails by ACLU representative 25 improve care.

Jody Kent is an advocate for people whom many consider society's rejects.

As the jails project coordinator for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, Kent makes sure Los Angeles County jails comply with constitutional standards and a court order requiring humane treatment of inmates, including access to medicine, showers and clothing.

Throughout the week, the 25-year-old visits all the county's jails to follow up on inmate complaints reported to the ACLU.

Her ability to visit the jails and establish working relationships with the staff and inmates is a result of a federal injunction against the Sheriff's Department in 1978 that called for unprecedented access by the ACLU to a troubled jail system, according to the organization's legal director, Mark D. Rosenbaum.

Kent's presence in the jails regularly leads to changes in procedures and conditions.

"Having the ACLU in there is a good thing," said sheriff's jails Chief Mark Klugman. "It's another set of eyes and another way of looking at things, and it helps us do our job.

"It's not adversarial."

The Sheriff's Department's civilian monitor, attorney Michael J. Gennaco, believes Kent's advocacy sometimes has cut through the red tape of bureaucracy.

"[She's] brought issues of concern to the department that they otherwise may not have learned about," Gennaco said.

In 1975, Los Angeles County inmates sued the Sheriff's Department, claiming their civil rights were violated because of poor jail conditions.

The U.S. District Court for the Central District held that inmates retain certain constitutional rights even in jail.

It ordered the sheriff to provide beds for each inmate, at least one hour per day of recreation, reasonable times to call family and friends, the ability to file grievances, and clean bedding, towels and clothing at least once a week Rutherford v. Pitchess, 457 F. Supp. 104 (1978).

"It is one of the pre-eminent jails-condition cases in the history of the country," said Rosenbaum, who was counsel on the Rutherford case.

"What has happened too frequently in jails cases and other structural reform cases is that victory has been achieved in liability, but there has not been enough monitoring to assure the remedies are in place and remain serviceable," Rosenbaum said. "This is an exemplar in the country as to day-to-day monitoring. [Kent] really is the voice for the voiceless in the jails."

"The complaints continue, though. In August, Kent was told during one of her visits that deputies had ordered gay inmates to be strip-searched in a main corridor of central jail.

The inmates, who are kept separate from the general population, reported they were called fags" and told to "squat like catchers" "spread their pussies" and "show [their] cum load."

The alleged incident lasted 10 minutes, according to the inmates, and happened during meal time as general population inmates walked by.

"Such behavior by staff demonstrates a level of immaturity, lack of professionalism and sadism, which tarnishes the reputation of the entire department," wrote Kent and the ACLU's criminal justice director, Ricardo Garcia, in a letter to the Sheriffs Department.

The Office of Independent Review, a civilian oversight agency created by the Board of Supervisors to monitor the department, is investigating the incident.

"That's an example of how information she learns about can be brought to the department's attention," said Gennaco, who heads the office.

The ACLU receives 55 calls per day to its inmate phone line and 20-to-25 letters per week, Kent said. Permanent signs are posted throughout the jails telling inmates they can call the ACLU collect to voice their concerns.

The majority of the complaints have to do with medical services, such as not having access to doctors or the need for special diets for inmates with high blood pressure or diabetes, she said.

Kent follows up on many of the complaints with visits to the jail, where she often comes across more problems.

On each visit to a jail, she's met by a member of the sheriff's legal unit. On most days, it's Deputy Ryan Jorgensen, whose job is to escort her around the jail without interfering with her work.

As she walks the halls of the hospital ward, she greets inmates, with "How are you? Everything OK?"

The inmates are well aware of her presence as she makes her rounds, yelling out "Hey! Are you ACLU?" and "Title 15," referring to the set of state regulations outlining minimum standards for inmates.

Title 15 "sets forth a number of directions with respect for permissible conditions in the jails and in many instances it overlaps with the scope of the [Rutherford] order itself," Rosenbaum said.

On a recent trip to the Men's Central Jail, Kent met with Inmate No. 8678839, a diabetic who had contacted the ACLU because his blood-sugar level was not being checked regularly.

Kent jotted down notes on her yellow legal pad as the 59-year-old attempted-murder suspect explained that an orderly told him he's not getting enough insulin because of budget problems.

And a jailhouse doctor whom he called "Dr. Death" told him, 'This is a jail, not a country club."

"Do you want us to advocate for you to see a doctor?" Kent asked.

"There's no money," he told her.

"That's not your responsibility," she said.

But the inmate, housed in the jail's hospital ward, was concerned about his complaint

"If I demand things, everybody on the floor gets punished," he said. "Things change, and it's directly related to you coming here. They treat us decently, but occasionally, on the weekends when they're doing overtime, we get treated ... like dirt."

Kent tried to get more specifics from the man, like the names of those he complained about, but he didn't know.

Those types of claims are hard to confirm, she said.

"Nine out of 10 times, [the retaliation] may not happen, but it certainly hinders our work if they are in fear of talking to us," she said.

And Kent is hip to inmates' claims.

"I recognize there's more to the story than what they tell us," she said.

Two years ago, Kent was a recent Boston College graduate working with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps as an advocate and organizer for the Los Angeles Coalition to End Hunger and Homelessness.

At the Jesuit school, she majored in communications and minored in faith, peace and justice, which focused on looking at the bigger picture and "relating your faith to social justice."

At the Jesuit school, she majored in communications and minored in faith, peace and justice, which focused on looking at the bigger picture and "relating your faith to social justice."

When the ACLU hired her, its goal was to continue to focus on the complaints received.

But she also believed there was "a systemic issue that needed to be fixed" in the jails.

Her first visit to the Men's Central Jail, the country's largest jail, left a bad taste in her mouth.

"I was horrified by how crowded it was," Kent said. "I was overwhelmed by the conditions."

Inmates were sleeping on floors, and they rarely were let out for exercise.

"I didn't eat for the rest of the day," she said. "I was very disgusted."

Kent quickly started working with the Sheriff's Department on how to get inmates beds.

The law allows overcrowded jails to let inmates sleep on the floor for a 24-hour period. But in Los Angeles, inmates were often housed for longer periods on the floors.

Kent pushed for the sheriff and the county to find funds to reopen beds, and in December, the Board of Supervisors allocated an additional $24.4 million to the jails.

Though the extra money didn't immediately fix the problem, the Sheriffs Department eventually opened up beds in other facilities to deal with the overcrowding.

"Without input by the ACLU, we might not have been as proactive in eliminating floor sleepers as we have been," Klugman said.

But the problem is not fixed, and it's cost "hundreds of thousands" of dollars to open up closed facilities in Castaic to house the inmates, Klugman said.

"It's been an extraordinary effort because we don't have the space," he said. "This is being done at a great expense. It's a Band-Aid approach."

It's an area where Klugman and Kent disagree, he said.

"She looks at it that it's fixed," he said. "It's not quite like that. We'd like to say it's fixed, but that's misleading. I can't promise you that, if the LAPD goes out and sweeps a neighborhood, we're not going to have floor sleepers."

Kent responds, "As far as we're concerned, unless there's an emergency, which would include a sudden influx of inmates in the jails, there will be no more sleeping on the floor."

During one recent visit, the biggest complaint of the day is the lack of clean bed sheets and clothing. Some inmates say they've been in the same clothes or sleeping on the same sheets for days.

Deputies tell her there's a shortage.

It's a concern for Kent, because of a strain of infection, known around the jail as MRS& methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus.

"The shortage of linens is a huge problem," Kent said.

The dirty sheets and clothes only festers the infection, she added.

Klugman said the jail has doubled its output of linens and clothes because of the staph infection problem and compliance with the law.

"We're generally not in violation, but ... to control the MRSA problem, we've run through our reserves," he said.

But inside the oldest area of the jail, another issue arises: Toilet after toilet along the cell rows is leaking at the base.

Some of the cells have large puddles.

"We need to get [the inmates] re-housed," Kent tells Jorgensen. "They can't have water down here."

Jorgensen makes notes.

"He helps us sometimes with plumbing problems by reporting them directly to the people who can fix them," Kent said.

The shortage of bedding and clothes is also prevalent in this area of the jail.

"It gets pretty cold at night, and we have no blankets," one inmate tells her.

Outside one cell, Jorgensen points out that sheets are clearly hanging around the perimeter of many of the bunk beds--makeshift drapes--and a new inmate tells Kent he has only one sheet

"It's not up to the inmate if someone in the cell took them," Kent later said about the fact that other inmates in the cell had sheets. "It's up to the deputies to get them for him."

Kent believes her advocacy benefits not only the inmates but also the deputies working in the jails.

"It's a depressive living and working environment," she said. "You can tell [the deputies] are disheartened by being there for so long.

"It affects them, and it affects the inmates."

'The things that she's advocating for can help the deputies as well in terms of their jobs," Klugman said.

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