The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is expected to vote today to transfer $25.5 million to the Sheriff’s Department to fund the roll-out of body-worn cameras to five stations over the next year.
In the middle a global pandemic of unprecedented scale and disproportionate impact on the health and well-being of African Americans, the nation reckons with another.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors today postponed discussion of a report by the Office of Inspector General that raises concerns about overcrowded jails, poor quality of medical and mental health care for inmates and the persistence of dangerous social cliques in the Sheriff’s Department.
In a confrontational surprise appearance before the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, Sheriff Alex Villanueva defended his reinstatement of a deputy fired after allegations of domestic violence and stalking.
The data around the use of force is complicated because new reporting policies were instituted in 2013, which county officials have long said created a spike in reporting that wasn’t reflective of a jump in actual force incidents. On top of that, mismatched systems for reporting different kinds of force and violence have created inconsistencies and unreliability in the numbers over time.
Dozens of advocates of criminal justice reform urged the board to simply adopt the Reform L.A. Jails initiative, which has garnered enough signatures to be certified for the November 2020 ballot. The measure would also prioritize alternatives to incarceration over jail construction.
Respect for immigrants and protecting public safety by ending deportations were dominant public comment during the L.A. County Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission’s town hall meeting on immigration at the UCLA Labor Center on Aug. 7.
The battle over making California a “sanctuary state” for so-called undocumented immigrants dominated the June 22 meeting of the newly formed Los Angeles County Sheriffs Civilian Oversight Commission.