Justice Department launches investigation into conditions at L.A. County men’s jail after years of complaints

The U.S. Justice Department has launched an investigation into Los Angeles County’s Men’s Central Jail following years of concerns about poor conditions and inmate deaths.

The government will look into whether Los Angeles County has provided “humane” conditions to individuals housed there, and notified Sheriff Robert Luna of the federal inquiry in a letter Wednesday, according to a Justice Department news release.

“Whether a person is held in a county jail, awaiting trial, or after conviction, the environmental conditions in that jail need to meet constitutional standards,” said Assistant Atty. Gen. Harmeet K. Dhillon in a statement.

It marks the latest in a string of federal and state investigations in the last few decades into the Sheriff’s Department and problems in the jails. Despite the investigations and promises of reforms, critics say underlying problems persist.

The most sensational of the federal probes involved allegations of deputy mistreatment of inmates. Prosecutors said then-Sheriff Lee Baca ordered deputies to hide an inmate who was cooperating with an FBI investigation. The affair led to sweeping corruption charges against Baca and his inner circle. A jury convicted Baca in 2017 on charges of obstructing justice. Several other deputies were found guilty of civil rights violations for beating inmates and a visitor in the jails.

The exact focus of the new probe remains unclear.

Attorneys from the Civil Rights Division will conduct the investigation under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act.

Officials in the Sheriff’s Department acknowledged that the agency had faced ongoing challenges with what they described as an “aging” facility but said care, safety and security had improved there over the years, amid ongoing state and federal probes.

“While we recognize the significant limitations of an aging facility, those challenges have not stopped the Department from moving forward with reforms, investments, and operational improvements that are producing measurable results,” the Sheriff’s Department said in a statement.

Sheriff’s officials said they recently deployed body-worn cameras in jails; had reduced use-of-force incidents 16% in 2025 compared with the previous year; created a mental health assessment area at the Inmate Reception Center; and invested $300 million for pest control and custodial maintenance, increasing the frequency from once a month to five times a month.

Luna has also supported closing the jail and replacing it with a facility focused on clinical care for inmates, pointing out that about half of the people in custody have significant medical or mental health challenges. But he has opposed closing the facility without a replacement, arguing that doing so would overcrowd other jail facilities.

For some time now, pressure has been mounting on L.A. County to fix its jail system.

Allegations of abuse, inmates being brutalized by jailers, and dire conditions have plagued the facility for years, leading some county leaders, former sheriffs and civil rights advocates to call for the jail to be closed. For years it’s been the focal point of federal and state investigations looking into not just the conditions behind its walls, but also corruption and violence.

In 2015, the Sheriff’s Department entered into an agreement with the Department of Justice to implement reforms on mental health and use-of-force in its jails.

Last year, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta filed a suit against Los Angeles County over what he called a “humanitarian crisis,” alleging that inmates lacked access to clean water, edible food, and were being housed in facilities infested with roaches and rats.

In March, Luna also reached out to the National Institute of Corrections to examine conditions at Los Angeles County jails after a rash of in-custody jail deaths.

“I want someone to come in and review from top to bottom,” Luna told The Times in an interview.

County supervisors have pushed to shut down the facility, but plans for how to close the jail and questions of what would happen to the inmates housed there have delayed action.

Asked about the federal investigation, Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn said she’d long supported a plan to replace Men’s Central Jail with a mental health facility.

“Men’s Central Jail is an outdated and decrepit facility that puts both our Sheriff’s deputies and inmates at risk,” Hahn said in a statement. “My colleagues and I on the Board of Supervisors have long been committed to shutting it down. However, until then, we have a responsibility to ensure that everyone incarcerated there is safe, cared for, and treated with basic human dignity.”

Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who also has pushed for the jail to be closed down, said in a statement that news of the Department of Justice investigation came as no surprise.

“For years, I have said plainly that Men’s Central Jail is antiquated, inhumane, and unfit for our workforce and those incarcerated,” Barger said in the statement. “Until this Board of Supervisors agrees that a replacement facility is necessary and shuts down the jail, we will continue to be plagued by these types of issues. I stand ready to shut down Men’s Central Jail and approve a replacement.”

L.A. County Public Defender Ricardo D. Garcia applauded the announcement, saying it underscored that conditions at the jail needed to be addressed. He said in a statement that the jail should be closed in favor of “diversion, treatment, housing, and community-based care.”

“No one should be subjected to unsafe or inhumane conditions simply because they are incarcerated,” Garcia said.

The federal probe announced Wednesday is expected to look into those conditions.

U.S. Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche notified Luna of the investigation in a letter, which was obtained by The Times.

“We have not reached any conclusions about the subject matter of this investigation,” reads the letter, which is signed by Blanche, Dhillon and Bill Essayli, the first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California. “We encourage the County to cooperate with our investigation and we assure you that we will seek to minimize any potential disruption our investigation may have on County operations.”

The probe will focus on the conditions in the facility itself and not on the actions of the deputies who work there, the Justice Department statement said.

Max Huntsman, the former L.A. County inspector general who spent years investigating misconduct in the Sheriff’s Department, said it was surprising to see President Trump’s Department of Justice launch such an investigation considering the Civil Rights Division’s turn away from probing misdeeds in police departments and correctional facilities.

Whereas the Obama-era Civil Rights Division used its weight to force reforms in troubled police departments through so-called pattern-or-practice investigations in Baltimore, Cleveland, Ferguson, Mo., and other cities, such investigations in effect vanished during Trump’s terms in office.

“You never know what the intent is until the act unfolds. On its face, though, it looks like that more classic investigation … where the federal government will use its clout to improve conditions in our jails, which would be marvelous,” Huntsman said.

Although language in the government’s announcement about not investigating individual deputies might alarm some, Huntsman said it was in line with the way he reviewed structural problems within the Sheriff’s Department.

“It’s important for them to let people know, ‘Hey, we’re here to figure out what’s going on and we’re here to correct it, not find individual scapegoats.’ That’s important politically and tactically,” he said.

Often, Huntsman said, he found problems in the jails were the result of deficient training and management. But he said Essayli and Dhillon would need to prosecute individual deputies if they found evidence of individual abuses.