LA agrees to federal oversight of troubled jail

Los Angeles County authorities will improve conditions in jails to better handle mentally ill inmates and stop excessive use of force by sheriff's deputies under a sweeping agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice released on Wednesday.

L.A. County Sheriff Jim McDonnell, elected last year after the controversial Lee Baca retired, called the agreement an attempt to turn the page on his department's past failures in managing the nation's largest jail system, which houses about 20,000 inmates.

“This is our collective opportunity to be on the leading edge of reform and to become a national model,” McDonnell said at a news conference.

The agreement comes as federal prosecutors continue to pursue criminal charges against several sheriff's officials, including the department's former second-in-command, according to the Los Angeles Times. Prosecutors already have won convictions against deputies accused of abusing inmates or of obstructing federal investigators looking into jail violence.

The deal comes as big city jails nationwide struggle struggling to properly provide services beyond those of the traditional lock-up. In Illinois, a prison psychiatrist heads Chicago’s Cook County Jail  and in New York City, a federal monitor is overseeing reform at the Rikers Island jail complex as part of a settlement between the city and the Justice Department of a lawsuit over systemic civil rights violations against teenage inmates.

The deal requires the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department to keep in place certain reforms it has already implemented and undertake further improvements at the jails. If the department falls short, the federal government will pursue a lawsuit in court, said U.S. Attorney Eileen Decker.

At least 500 people will be added to the jail staff, according to the New York Times, which reported that more mental health specialists will be hired as well.

The agreement filed in federal court follows a finding by the U.S. Department of Justice last year that county officials were not doing enough to prevent inmate suicides and that some prisoners had to endure harrowing conditions such as vermin-infested facilities.

About 20 percent of the 17,000 or so inmates in the county jails are classified as mentally ill, according to the Times.

That 2014 report, outlined in a letter to county officials, was one in a series of revelations of abuse and mismanagement at the scandal-plagued jail system.

Nine inmates committed suicide in county jails in 2013, while last year five did, Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Nicole Nishida said.

One key measure to be carried out under the agreement is training of jail custody staff in crisis intervention for inmates, McDonnell said.

The deal also calls for ongoing pest control and allowing mentally ill inmates more time outside their cells.

It also widens the scope of reforms the department agreed to when it resolved a 2012 lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union.

That agreement with the ACLU required the department to revise its use of force policy and give further training to deputies to prevent excessive force at two downtown Los Angeles jails. The latest agreement applies those measures to all the county's jails, officials said.

McDonnell declined to estimate how much the Sheriff's Department might spend on the reforms.

In May, a federal grand jury indicted a former Los Angeles County undersheriff and a retired captain on obstruction and conspiracy charges in an investigation into inmate abuse and corruption.

Al Jazeera and Reuters