{"id":10863,"date":"2026-03-19T21:03:05","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T21:03:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/2026\/03\/19\/sheriff-asks-federal-agency-to-review-la-jails-after-inmate-deaths\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T21:03:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T21:03:05","slug":"sheriff-asks-federal-agency-to-review-la-jails-after-inmate-deaths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/2026\/03\/19\/sheriff-asks-federal-agency-to-review-la-jails-after-inmate-deaths\/","title":{"rendered":"Sheriff asks federal agency to review LA jails after inmate deaths"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

Sheriff Robert Luna has asked the National Institute of Corrections to investigate conditions and practices at Los Angeles County jails, a request that followed the deaths of 10 inmates in jail custody in less than three months. <\/p>\n

The request comes amid growing concern over conditions inside the county lockup. In September, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta sued the Sheriff’s Department over “unsafe and unconstitutional conditions in the county jails.”<\/p>\n

Luna has also faced questions from the Sheriff’s Civilian Oversight Commission on health conditions, health access, drug use and other factors that may lead to deaths in custody. <\/p>\n

Now, the Sheriff’s Department is asking the National Institute of Corrections to conduct a comprehensive review of county jails in an effort to reduce the number of deaths, Luna told The Times. <\/p>\n

“I want someone to come in and do a top to bottom review,” Luna said. <\/p>\n

Specific details about when the review will begin and what it will include have not yet been determined, but Luna said the aim is to get an outside, “impartial perspective.” <\/p>\n

Officials at the National Institute of Corrections referred questions to its parent agency, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

The National Institute on Corrections provides state, local, and federal resources and guidance. <\/p>\n

according to agency on its site<\/a>Provides “on-site technical assistance” to prison administrators, and also helps identify “gaps in policy and practice.”<\/p>\n

The review will include “everything from policy, process, facilities to what we’re doing to make sure we’re not missing anything,” Luna said. <\/p>\n

The inmate deaths have raised concern among top sheriff’s officials and the agencies that oversee sheriff’s operations. The department saw 46 custodial deaths in 2025, a huge increase from the 32 reported in 2024. <\/p>\n

Deaths in custody are reviewed by the Office of the Inspector General and the U.S. Department of Justice. <\/p>\n

Bonta’s lawsuit against the Sheriff’s Department, filed in September 2025, alleged that inmates were being forced to live in filthy cells with “broken and clogged toilets, infestations of rats and cockroaches, and no clean water for drinking or bathing.”<\/p>\n

In a statement, Bonta’s office alleged that the lack of health care in prisons, and the conditions inside, contributed to “shocking rates of preventable deaths such as suicide in custody.”<\/p>\n

In a previous interview, Luna called the deaths at the beginning of the year a “kick in the groin.”<\/p>\n

Efforts to reduce deaths are challenging in part because the inmate population inside prisons is growing, and sicker, Luna said, many of them suffering from drug addiction or long-term conditions. <\/p>\n

Officials said about 82% of those detained disclosed at least one medical or mental health problem when they were booked. <\/p>\n

According to department data, half of the 46 inmate deaths recorded in 2025 were listed as natural. Autopsy results are still pending to determine the cause of death in this year’s cases.<\/p>\n

Luna pointed to changes that have already been made as efforts to improve conditions, including deploying body-worn cameras at the Inmate Reception Center, Men’s Central Jail and the Twin Towers Correctional Facility.<\/p>\n

The department also opened a renovated mental health assessment area in the Inmate Reception Center, the primary entry and release point for county inmates near Men’s Central Jail. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sheriff Robert Luna has asked the National Institute of Corrections to investigate conditions and practices at Los Angeles County jails, a request that followed the deaths of 10 inmates in jail custody in less than three months. The request comes amid growing concern over conditions inside the county lockup. In September, California Atty. Gen. Rob<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[3561,3901,1802,1258,5135,5134,442,5133],"class_list":["post-10863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bible-verse","tag-agency","tag-asks","tag-deaths","tag-federal","tag-inmate","tag-jails","tag-review","tag-sheriff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10863"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10865,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10863\/revisions\/10865"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}