Historically, Black and Latinx/Hispanic people have been disproportionately arrested and incarcerated in Los Angeles County. These disparities worsened in 2020.
To close Men’s Central Jail (MCJ), recognized as one of the worst jail facilities in the country, Los Angeles County will need to decrease its overall jail population to under 8,500 people. On March 30, 2021, the county’s MCJ Closure Workgroup published a comprehensive plan to do this. Now, the countdown begins for implementation.
For complete details on the diverson plan see the Men’s Central Jail Closure Plan.
The number of people dying in LA jails has increased since 2016, as reports of overcrowding, inhumane conditions, medical neglect, and horrendous mental health care have been revealed. Since 2007, at least six teenagers have died in LA jails, all of them Black or Latinx, and all of them legally innocent.
The number of people who die in—or as a result of being in—jail is not fully captured in this official data, as not all LA jail deaths have been counted in official statistics. And even when people survive jail, the experience of having been incarcerated increases their mortality risk.
The current-year data shown here is available because of AB-2761, which took effect on January 1, 2023. It requires that law enforcement agencies post information about deaths in their custody within 10 days of the death, decreasing the time in which that information becomes easily accessible to the public. The transparency forced by this legislation has helped family members of those who have died to demand action to stem the tide of deaths. These grieving loved ones, alongside advocate allies such as the Justice LA Coalition, are demanding that LA County follow through on its commitment to close Men’s Central Jail by investing in community-based diversion programs.
Read more about LA jail deaths here.
Jail deaths have increased since 2016.
The vast majority of people who die in LASD custody are Black or Hispanic/Latinx.
Number of Deaths in Custody, by Race/Ethnicity (2005-2025)
For years, the Los Angeles County jail system has been overcrowded, leading to poor conditions and numerous lawsuits. After the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, the jail population decreased by 30 percent as the county and courts sought to decrease transmission of the virus. This was the lowest jail population in decades. The population started rising again in May 2020, due in part to the growing number of people sentenced to state prison who could not be transferred because of COVID-19 policies. This tab allows you to track how the jail population is changing over time.
As in many jails across the country, the largest group in the Los Angeles County jail system continues to be people in pretrial status. Paying bail is the only barrier to release for most people in the pretrial population, making them an important group for the county to target to reduce the jail population.
There are persistent racial disparities in who is incarcerated in Los Angeles County, with Black people and especially Black women suffering disproportionate rates. Although the jail population decreased at the beginning of the pandemic, racial disparities worsened for Black and Latinx/Hispanic people. An August 2020 study of the Los Angeles County jail population found that, during the pandemic, Black women were spending the longest days in custody and Black people with mental health needs were released at significantly lower rates than their white counterparts. To prevent these unintended consequences, the county must incorporate racial equity into its strategies to reduce the jail population. Here, you can track racial disparities in incarceration over time.
After the passage of a 2011 California law, often referred to as AB 109 or ‘realignment,’ some people convicted of low-level felonies serve sentences under community supervision or in county jail instead of prison. Los Angeles County’s Men’s Central Jail (MCJ) Closure Workgroup identified people incarcerated for nonserious, nonviolent felonies as a potential group to target for diversion to community-based care, which would help reduce the jail population.
The state has allocated billions of dollars through AB 109 to counties to offset the costs of local incarceration and for rehabilitative services—including community-based treatment. A 2020 state audit suggested Los Angeles County may have over $1 million just in unused surplus AB 109 funding. Traditionally, most Los Angeles County AB 109 funding has gone to the Sheriff’s Department. As the county shifts to a ‘care first’ approach, the Board of Supervisors has started investigating reallocating the money to alternatives to incarceration, which could help further decrease the AB 109 population in the jail.
Note: The AB 109 designation only appears in the LASD documents for partially sentenced and sentenced case statuses. The documents do not break down the pretrial population by charge level or case type (e.g. AB 109).
As of March 2021, around 40 percent of people in jail have identified mental health needs, a group that has grown over the course of the pandemic. Consistent with national trends, incarcerated women have a particularly high rate of mental health needs. According to a study by RAND, up to 61 percent of people in the Los Angeles County jail mental health population could be appropriate for community release. Several county workgroups, including the Men’s Central Jail (MCJ) Closure Workgroup, have recommended the county invest in expansion of community-based mental health treatment options to increase diversion for people with mental health conditions. Here, you can track the size of the mental health population, including people who receive psychotropic medication in the general population and people in specialized housing units because of high clinical needs.