‘Welcome to the Zoo’

Lack of Resources and Systemic Indifference
Fuel Rampant Abuse in California Jails




“Welcome to the zoo,” Deputy Jacob Allen says, motioning to the figures in orange jumpsuits behind him. The inmates are separated from the guards by a thick glass wall. Each inmate is behind a locked metal door, with the exception of a tall, bearded man standing chained to a wall in the center of the room. His brown eyes look glassy and dull.

This is module 142 at Twin Towers Correctional Facility in Los Angeles. The inmates in this section of the jail can only come out of their cells individually for an hour maximum. During this time, they wear a waist chain and their hands are cuffed.

“These are the highly violent inmates who can actually think,” Deputy Ralph Sanders says, pacing in front of the glass. He has been working as a correctional officer at Twin Towers for four years.

“They’ve probably committed a violent crime because they are violent by nature,” Sanders says. With six years experience as a U.S. Marine, Sanders’ approach to the inmates is militant and not unlike standard portrayals of correctional officers in film and media.

But Twin Towers is different from a standard county jail. Over 90% of the inmates are mentally ill, making the facility the largest mental institution in California. Twin Towers encompasses the two main “tower” buildings and the adjacent Correctional Treatment Center (CTC), which houses the most extreme mental health cases. According to Justiniano Jaojoco, the Nurse Manager at CTC, understaffing and inadequate resources make it difficult to provide inmates with the care they need.

“If we had more staff and more supervision we could take them out [of their cells] more,” Jaojoco said. “Meds could be delivered a little better, faster, less arguing with the patients. Sometimes the staff is short and it takes longer to get medication. The patient is very agitated and before you reach that patient at all it’s already out of control.”

Many inmates develop mental illnesses in jail

Justiniano Jaojoco, the nurse manager for Correctional Treatment Center, cites the lack of personnel for insufficient care of inmates.
Audio story narrated by Moriah Polk, MS candidate.
Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound.

A 2015 lawsuit settlement against LA County Jails for inadequate mental health protocol, suicide prevention methods and excessive use of force has sparked a series of reforms within county correctional facilities. Despite increased financial resources being delegated to the jail system as a result of the lawsuit, conditions in LA County Jails are not sufficient for rehabilitation. After four years, several conditions of the settlement are still not met. Many of these inadequacies can be tied to lack of staff and insufficient training.

There are 15,000 inmates and only 500 mental health care professionals in the LA County Jail System, according to Jaojoco. That’s roughly 30 inmates per single mental health clinician.

Richard Drooyan, an LA-based attorney, is in charge of monitoring the terms of the settlement. He says his biggest concern is the lack of out-of-cell time for inmates.

“[LA County Jails] just haven’t been able to meet the number of [out of cell] hours required under the settlement agreement for inmates in the mental health housing,” he said.

According to Drooyan, the shortage of out of cell time affects the inmates’ ability to access individual and group therapeutic services.

Jaojoco agrees that, as it stands, inmates aren’t always getting access to the resources they need. CTC has only 46 beds, each one of them full. The waiting list for the unit is long, leaving many inmates without the specialized level of care only available in CTC.

“We haven’t had sufficient staff for the past few years,” Jaojoco said. “We’re short. The waiting list for patients to come to our unit used to be a lot longer, but there are still a lot [of patients] to be admitted.”

The deficit of resources is not confined within the jail walls. Resources for the transitional period from incarceration to life outside are similarly meager.

“There are not enough resources,” Mary Whaley says. “There just simply are not.”

The transition out of jail leads to gaps in care

Transitions Mental Health Program Head Mary Whaley sees lack of resources as the primary roadblock to providing sufficient transitional care for inmates who have been released.
Moriah Polk, MS candidate, narrated this audio story.
Music is courtesy of Epidemic Sound.

The jail system provides inmates with 30 days of medication and 90 days with a community worker after release, according to Whaley. After the 30 days of medication, the individual must contact a health care provider to continue access to their prescriptions.

Few make it past these 30 days, according to Whaley. The majority of former inmates go straight back to living on the streets. When their first priority is food and shelter, mental health quickly falls by the wayside.

“We’re supposed to find housing and resources for individuals and it’s just not out there,” Whaley says. According to both Whaley and Jaojoco, many inmates actively try to return to jail because it is the only place where they have access to medication and psychiatric services.

“They say: ‘I’ll see you next time,’” Whaley says.

Jaojoco refers to the LA County Jail system as a “revolving door.” He approximates that the rate of recidivism among those with mental health issues is about 50%.

Although jail is the only option for many to gain access to mental health services, the system does little for mental health maintenance. According to Jaojoco, 30%-40% of inmates in LA County leave jail still facing mental health issues.

“Jail will make you really sick: with the charges that you have, with the environment,” he said. “I would be sick here if I was on the other side.”

30-40% of inmates with mental health issues leave jail with symptoms that have not been adequately treated.

A glimpse inside

“These are the crazies,” Deputy Sanders comments as he saunters past the men in module 172. On the heavy doors of each cell are labels: “spitter,” “gasser” and “extremely violent.”

This floor is the first stop for inmates at Twin Towers. Inmates are immediately given a psychiatric evaluation. They are stripped and given rip-proof gowns to wear while they wait so they cannot create a noose out of their clothing.

“With a normal person, you can just go up and talk to them. With these guys, you just never know. We’re lucky if they have clothes on,” Sanders says.

There are 96 beds in module 172. Ideally, inmates are placed in more permanent housing within 24 hours. However, if an inmate shows any sign of being a danger to himself, he is kept in this module. Inmates here receive daily psychiatric evaluations to determine their required level of care.

Levels of the jail are organized by mental health status: one to five require low level observation, six and seven are medium observation and eight and nine are for the most mentally ill inmates. CTC is reserved for the most extreme cases.

The facility opened in 1997 to house mentally ill inmates after deinstitutionalization began in the 1980s. Around this time, LA’s mentally ill population became increasingly tied to homelessness. Many wound up in Twin Towers for minor crimes such as loitering and disturbing the peace.

By 2017, LA County had an average daily inmate population of over 17,000. Overcrowding made the system inadequate and capricious by design. Deputy behavior made an already insufficient facility unbearable. Twin Towers ranked as one of the ten worst prisons in the United States, according to a 2013 article in Mother Jones Magazine.

The article cites a 2011 report from the ACLU, which processes about 4,500 complaints from inmates each year, that says “to be an inmate in the Los Angeles County jails is to fear attacks by a savage gang of deputies.”

While some issues in the system have been dealt with in the last decade, there are still problems that have not been adequately addressed.

“We’re not qualified at all for mental health situations; we just don’t have the training,” says Deputy Jose Flores. Flores has been a correctional officer at Twin Towers for three years.

Guards at Twin Towers are given just one 40-hour training dealing with mental health issues facing inmates. They focus on de-escalation techniques through verbal cues.

The guards are given no information about inmates’ medical and mental conditions at all, unless an inmate expresses a sudden desire to hurt himself or someone else. Then protocol becomes more rigorous and guards are required to check in on inmates every 15 minutes.

Sanders and Flores speak about the daily struggle to bring inmates to court, give the men their medications and break up frequent fights. “It can be hard sometimes — some of the guys who are ‘way out there’ just hate law enforcement,” Sanders says.

A perspective from behind bars

In 2011, Michele Infante was sentenced to serve a year in Century Regional Detention Facility (CRDF) for making a terrorist threat against her ex-husband. Infante maintains she never committed the crime and the conflict stemmed from a contentious divorce process. While incarcerated, she was subjected to inhumane treatment, unsanitary conditions and abuse by those in power, Infante says.

Supporting survivors of sheriff violence

Michele Infante organizes and attends protests and public forums for people to air grievances about the LA County Sheriff's Department.
Audio story narrated by Moriah Polk, MS candidate.
Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound.

The Lynwood facility, as CRDF is commonly referred to, is currently at the center of a $53 million settlement regarding the cruel and unusual treatment of female inmates during strip searches. Infante described the searches as filthy and horrendous.

“The deputies were making fun of us, they were hitting us with batons,” Infante said. "... And then they close the door and then they make you go up against the wall.”

Invasive cavity searches were performed in a garage with groups of up to 60 inmates at a time, according to the Los Angeles Times. Inmates were made to publicly remove feminine hygiene products and bend forward, expose themselves to the room and spread their genitals with their hands. Afterward, Infante said, they were made to use their unwashed hands to open their mouths as wide as possible.

Infante said the facility conditions and treatment from guards contributed to feelings of hopelessness and made her develop anxiety. She recounted watching a guard taunt a depressed inmate, jeering and encouraging her to commit suicide. This kind of callous treatment of inmates by correctional officers has been documented throughout LA County jails and is emblematic of the reigning culture of abuse.

Within two months of entering Lynwood, Infante said she felt the impact of incarceration on her mental health.

"I was very depressed and I was begging God to help me through each day because I wanted to commit suicide,” Infante said.

“I didn’t have any mental health issues before I went in, but I came out with anxiety and depression, for sure, and PTSD.”

Infante said she developed post-traumatic stress disorder after she was raped by a sheriff’s deputy in September of 2011. Infante told Witness LA the deputy led her to an unused classroom in the jail and pushed her up against a wall before assaulting her.

It wasn’t until years after her release that Infante filed a formal complaint about the rape. Inside, there was no system for reporting sexual abuse and Infante would have been forced to file her complaint with another deputy who worked with the man she said raped her.

“You can’t be sexually assaulted, beaten, or treated poorly, intimidated or anything and file it to the very people that are doing it to you — it makes no sense at all,” Infante said.

In addition to the settlement regarding abusive strip searches at Lynwood, the facility attracted attention in 2017 after a deputy was arrested for sexual misconduct against inmates. The county paid out $3.9 million in settlements after former sheriff’s deputy Giancarlo Scotti was charged with several felony counts of sexual assault against inmates at CRDF. His trial is set to begin in September.

Since her release, Infante has been a vocal activist with the grassroots organization Dignity & Power Now. As the campaign lead for DPN’s Coalition to End Sheriff Violence, Infante has organized a monthly civilian oversight meeting with the LA Sheriff’s Department. The meeting allows members of the community to formally lodge complaints and make suggestions to a commission of trained and elected representatives.

Recently, the coalition successfully lobbied with the Sheriff’s department for signs to be hung in every detention facility in the county. The signs will have DPN’s phone number and a complaint hotline so inmates will be able to report instances of abuse and neglect without going to deputies directly.

Infante also hosts regular support group meetings for the families of those who are or were incarcerated. There are more than 30 regular attendees who seek everything from spiritual guidance to legal assistance at the meetings. Infante does her best to provide resources for it all.

Nonprofit organizations like DPN are attempting to meet the needs of communities fractured by incarceration trauma. But without the resources available to the county, activists like Infante are making do with donated meals and free gathering spaces for meetings.

Five major lawsuits over the last 10 years have cost LA County over $60 million for mistreatment of inmates.
Pixabay Stock Photo

Looking ahead

After five major lawsuits against California and LA County correctional facilities in the last decade, there is finally an emphasis on providing more funds and resources towards inmate care. The proposed 2019-2020 budget allocated $80.4 million towards mental health facilities within the criminal justice system. The county is also making strides to fix its severe personnel shortage by adding 247 staff members for mental health services — including psychiatrists, social workers and therapists.

According to Jaojoco, communication, crisis intervention and prevention of the use of force are being taught to officers that work in CTC. “They are better trained. They're more patient,” he said. “They have to understand more about mental illness.”

In addition to specialized training for officers in CTC, the unit has made significant strides in reducing the use of force against patients. According to Jaojoco, CTC used to keep 30-40 patients per month in restraints. In the past year, restraints have only been used on three patients.

Though resources are increasing, the incarceration rate of individuals with mental health needs is too. According to the LA Sheriff’s Department, there has been a 60% increase in the mentally ill jail population since 2009. It costs taxpayers about $30,000 more per inmate each year to incarcerate those with mental disabilities than those without.

Recently, there were tentative plans in the works to demolish Men’s Central Jail to build a mental treatment center for the incarcerated. However, on Aug. 13, amid growing concern regarding the LA County policies regarding incarceration of those with mental illness, the Board of Supervisors voted to cancel the $1.7-billion contract. A new plan remains unannounced.

Jail reform activists like Infante applaud the move to cancel the contract. Many opposed building the treatment center in favor of building community resource centers, saying a single facility would serve as a “high-tech jail” instead of a rehabilitation center.

“It’s a victorious win knowing that community voices were heard and a new approach to mental health is in progress,” Infante said. ”With mental health facilities spread out around the county, families don’t have to be separated from loved ones hundreds of miles away while receiving care and now will have the opportunity to support them close to home. It just makes sense.”

With future plans for mental health reform still unclear, lasting systemic change remains elusive. However, both experts and activists agree that adequate reform will have to come from within as much as from external legislation. While LA County is working to improve its jail system and learn from its history of abuse, it is unfortunately representative of the larger links between mental illness and incarceration throughout America.