Use of jails as asylums hit

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. Troy Anderson in the Daily News.

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.