LA's jails used as asylums

Los Angeles County can claim but another record, more people in our jails than anywhere else in the country according to the Justice Policy Institute.

To be exact: 19,062 as of 2006.

The institute says the jails have become "asylums."

Daily News story:

As Los Angeles County supervisors consider a nearly $700 million plan to overhaul the jail system, a report set to be released today highlights a critical need to stop using the nation's jails as "asylums" to warehouse the homeless, mentally ill, addicted and those charged with immigration offenses.

The report by the Washington, D.C.-based Justice Policy Institute finds communities are bearing the cost of a massive increase in the nation's jail population, which has nearly doubled in less than two decades.

"As other metropolitan areas have demonstrated, there are effective, strategic ways to reduce a jail population without compromising public safety," said Mark Rosenbaum, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.