The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and members of the public heard an update from the team tasked with closing the Men’s Central Jail Tuesday, and it’s safe to say few were pleased with what they heard.
Supervisor Lindsey Horvath questioned the speed of the closure progress, as officials with the Jail Closure Implementation Team — recently re-branded the Community Safety Implementation Team — said it would take between six and nine months to create a plan.
Supervisor Janice Hahn too expressed dismay at that timeline.
“We’ve been given excuses, we’ve been given non-existent timelines and there’s been no accountability and I think this board of all women have made this a priority,” Hahn said.
Officials also took issue with the name change. The process of closing the facility had been entrusted to the Jail Closure Implementation Team under the Chief Executive Office. That unit was re-branded to a name that “better reflects your board’s multi-pronged objective — to close MCJ and expand the community-based continuum of care,” team officials said.
“It also allows us to engage the partners who initially did not see jail closure as part of their mission but whose collaboration will help achieve this goal in the shortest timeframe,” they added.
But the supervisors questioned whether the name change was necessary, with Hahn saying she was “not a fan.”
CSIT Executive Director Wilford Pinkney said a lot of thought was put into re-branding the team, and community service was its goal as opposed to jails.
“Jail is the last resort,” Pinkney said.
“A big part of our job is to bring together all the partners, as many people as we can to effectuate the closure of the jail … some people didn’t see a role for themselves in `jail closure’ and for me that’s important,” he added.
Pinkney said his team was taking a strategic approach encompassing a three-lever framework — to reduce inflow, reduce inmates’ length of stay and increase outflow.
Hahn, who stressed the board was “fed up with this process,” also questioned the impact of Proposition 36 on the closure. The ballot measure approved in November 2024 reclassifies certain drug and theft crimes as felony charges, with increased sentences.
Pinkney responded that the facility was already accepting between 35 and 38 new inmates every week, and Prop 36 could potentially add to that number, but he stressed it was still too early to judge that impact.
“A significant reason for me on why I want this jail closed is its absolutely deplorable conditions for anyone who’s in there, who works there, who is incarcerated there — and that’s why the jail has to close,” Horvath said.
Members of the community who spoke Tuesday expressed vocal opposition to the team and to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
A coalition of members from JusticeLA, a community organization including attorneys from the ACLU, impacted families and other advocates, rallied outside the boardroom before the meeting began Tuesday.
“2025 officially has the highest rate of in-custody deaths in the last 20 years, averaging one death every 6 days,” according to a group statement. “Three people died last Sunday alone, on March 30th, the four year anniversary of the County’s Close Men’s Central Jail report which outlined how to close the jail in 18-24 months,” the statement added.
Sonali Malik, a researcher at the UCLA BioCritical Studies Lab, said she “spent the past two years reading autopsy reports that come out of the MCJ and I can confidently say that the vast majority of cases classify the cause of death as `natural’ when there’s nothing natural about the death.”
Berklee Donovan, a jail conditions advocate from the ACLU’s Southern California branch, alleged that inmates were being killed by the conditions of their imprisonment. Donovan said the team’s goal was to move forward with closing the facility, but ensuring livable conditions within the facility was the responsibility of the sheriff’s department.
Other members of the community demanded the board take stricter measures to hold the LASD accountable, including defunding the department and redirecting the money toward youth development, mental health and community programs.