Sheriff says mental health cuts burden L.A. jails

May 25, 2010

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca on Tuesday blasted cuts to mental health services in the Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed budget, saying they would burden the county’s already overcrowded jails.

Baca estimated that the Sheriff’s Department currently has about 2,500 inmates with mental health problems in its jails, many of them in the Twin Towers facility in downtown Los Angeles. Critics have asserted that the number of mentally ill inmates is much higher, with many landing in Men’s Central Jail, a facility less equipped for mental health care.

Cutting funding to community mental health services would push the mentally ill out of clinics, onto the streets and, for many, eventually into the jails, Baca said.

“Los Angeles County jails are already the largest mental health provider in the country,” Baca said. “The timing of these cuts could not come at a worse time.”

– Robert Faturechi

No cuts in store for Los Angeles County jails after all

Sheriff Lee Baca will not close a jail because of budget cuts after all. Although the sheriff had a few months ago threatened such a closure, the department has managed to find $25 million in additional savings and revenue, officials said today.

Early last summer, Baca said he might have to close part or all of the Men’s Central Jail, or the North facility jail, because of a growing public funding crisis.

“There will be no jail closures, and no portion of a jail will be closed,” said Steve Whitmore, the department’s spokesman. “There will no reductions in services in unincorporated areas and no reductions in detectives.”

Instead, the department will use unspent funds and new revenue streams to cover the gap. Whitmore said the department would get $10 million of additional state revenue for housing inmates awaiting transfer to prisons and use $7 million in funds left over from programs last fiscal year. It will also use $3 million in revenue from cities that contract with the department for law enforcement, $1 million in miscellaneous revenue, $2.5 million in cuts to specialty medical clinic services and $1.5 million in reductions to fixed assets.

Whitmore said the county has agreed that it doesn’t need to implement $22 million more in potential cuts.

– Richard Winton