California to sue Los Angeles County over "inhumane conditions" in jails, Attorney General Rob Bonta says

California Attorney General Rob Bonta has announced legal action against Los Angeles County over what he described as "inhumane conditions" in county jails. 

At a news conference Monday morning, Bonta said he had filed a lawsuit against LA County, the LA County Sheriff's Department, Sheriff Robert Luna, County Correctional Health Services (CHS) and Director of Correctional Health Services Dr. Timothy Belavich over alleged "unconstitutional and inhumane conditions" in county jails. 

Luna said his department will cooperate with the California Department of Justice. 

"Despite ongoing challenges, including a rising inmate population and an aging Men's Central Jail, our staff have remained committed to providing constitutional, humane care to those in our custody," Luna said in a statement. "We are not waiting for mandates, we are proactively advancing reforms to build a safer, more accountable custody environment."

The attorney general said his office launched an investigation in 2021 to determine whether the sheriff's department had engaged in a pattern or practice of "unconstitutional policing." Bonta said the investigation found several constitutional violations, including overcrowded facilities, inadequate sanitation and a significant increase in in-custody deaths. 

"Let me be clear, this is about human dignity," Bonta said. "This is about safety, this is about justice for those who are in our care."  

According to court documents, Bonta's office claims that incarcerated people were "forced to live in filthy cells with broken and overflowing toilets, infestations of rats and roaches, and no clean water for drinking or bathing." It also claims that individuals suffered physical or mental deterioration in those conditions and were unable to access medical or mental health care. 

Bonta claimed that the conditions aren't new and alleges the county has been aware of the conditions for decades, but has resisted oversight and has spent millions of dollars defending lawsuits. He added that while the sheriff's department has made a number of improvements to its policing practices, mainly with patrolling, but it has still failed to "implement agreed-upon reforms," designed to address the violations that persist. 

"We did not take this step lightly, but when lives are at stake and decades of inaction have caused preventable suffering and preventable deaths, we must act," Bonta said. 

Bonta said his lawsuit seeks injunctive and declaratory relief that would require all the agencies and parties named to provide several reforms.

Those reforms include:

• Provide constitutionally adequate medical, dental and mental healthcare to incarcerated individuals
• Protect incarcerated individuals from an unreasonable risk of harm
• Provide habitable, humane and safe conditions of confinement 
• Respect the dignity and health of incarcerated individuals 
• Ensure health care requests are addressed promptly and fully
• Provide reasonable accommodations and equal access to programs, services and activities for incarcerated individuals 
• Provide access to multilingual interpretation and translation services to incarcerated individuals with limited English proficiency 

"We know reform is achievable when agencies engage in good-faith collaboration, but we won't hesitate to go to court when they refuse to act," Bonta said. "The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department has refused to act."