Men's Central Jail is a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Departmentcounty jail for men in Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California, United States. Built in 1963, it is one of the oldest county jails in California. The Men's Central Jail is located at 441 Bauchet St., Los Angeles 90012. The Men's Central Jail houses men who are awaiting trial or who have been convicted of crimes. The Men's Central Jail is considered one of the largest jails in the world. In May 2013, along with the adjacent Twin Towers Correctional Facility, Men's Central Jail was ranked as one of the ten worst prisons in the United States, based on reporting in Mother Jones magazine. On July 7, 2020, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted 4–0 to pursue a plan to close the Men's Central Jail within 12 months. In voting to eventually close the 57-year-old facility, county supervisors said they wanted to focus on community-based programs to treat mental health challenges of those entering and exiting the jail system administered by the Los Angeles CountySheriff's Department. The vote came amid deliberate inmate reductions during outbreaks of COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement protests over police violence and the killing of George Floyd.
Construction and population
The construction of the Men's Central Jail was finished in 1963. The original building was designed to house 3,323 inmates. In 1976, an addition was added to the structure at the cost of $35 million, and by December 1990, inmate capacity was 5,276. Men's Central Jail has severe overcrowding, leading to problems such as inmates lacking shower facilities, very short recreation times out of their cells, wearing dirty clothes for up to a week, and inmates sleeping on floors for extended periods of time. In March 1997, the inmate population was about 13,000, and saw similarly high numbers by June 2015, where the inmate population was about 17,000 and increased to 1900 by August, where the legal limits on the jail population were only for 15,000 inmates.
Men's Central Jail provides some services to its inmates. Inmates can attend self-help classes on domestic violence, alcohol abuse, and substance abuse. Religious services are provided to inmates in the wake of several ACLU lawsuits. As of 2004, selected inmates can earn a GED while incarcerated.
Violence and lawsuits
The ACLU has sued Men's Central Jail for major civil rights violations. The United States Department of Justice has also sued the Men's Central Jail. In 2013, federal prosecutors charged 18 Sheriff's Deputies with excessive use of force. In June 2015, Los Angeles Sheriff's Deputies were found guilty of beating a handcuffed man at the Men's Central Jail.
