A commission appointed to investigate Los Angeles County jails said Friday that the system has shown a “persistent pattern of unnecessary and excessive force” and blamed Sheriff Lee Baca for a “failure of leadership.”
The Citizens’ Commission on Jail Violence, a sevenmember panel made up of several former judges and a police chief, released its final report Friday after a lengthy investigation of the nation’s largest county jail system and the treatment of some 15,000 inmates by the sheriff’s office who runs it.
The commission said a “force-first” attitude hasreigned in a jail system that relied too much on intimidation and humiliation to establish control of inmates.
Sheriff’s Department “personnel have used force against inmates when the force was disproportionate to the threat posed or there was no threat at all,” the report said, according to the Los Angeles Times.
It said discipline was discouraged against deputies, and there was little training or guidance in instances when force should be used. It said senior managers failed to investigate beatings, and despite a wide array of computer systems, entities with oversight of the jails failed to regularly review data for trends in violent behavior.
Front Section, Pages 6 on 09/30/2012