LOS ANGELES — In 2021, in the midst of the pandemic, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved an ambitious two-year plan to close the dungeon-like Men's Central Jail. The idea was to decrease the number of people in custody countywide by several thousand and shut down the aging facility bit by bit.
But two years have come and gone, and the total jail population still hovers around 14,000. The notorious downtown lockup — now 60 years old — is still open. And no one seems to agree on a path forward.
This week, the board was set to consider a motion declaring the county's jails a "humanitarian crisis" and outlining a set of recommendations to help fix that.
