After a report revealed hefty misconduct among Los Angeles County Sheriffs, Sheriff Lee Baca has agreed to a list of reforms aimed to improve inmate treatment in county prisons.
Among the list of 63 reforms set forth by the commission, Baca plans on hiring an outside custody expert to oversee the prisons and create an independent inspector general’s office.
“I couldn’t have written [the reforms] better myself,” Baca said at a press conference.
Baca is still being criticized, though, for refusing to fire senior managers and Undersheriff Paul Tanaka, who was specifically implicated in the blue commission report for encouraging deputies to abuse their authority over inmates.
The commission’s report painted Baca as an out-of-touch boss, and found that some of the deputies who report directly to Baca purposely hid a problem of “deputy cliques” in jails. When Baca was made aware of abuses in late 2011, investigators did not find any evidence of Baca taking initiative to deal with the issue.
Investigators found that the majority of deputies working in county jails were ethical and hard-working, but found certain deputies were quick to use violence as a first resort in dealing with inmates.
The report showed evidence of deputies forcing inmates into strip searches as a means of embarrassment and harassment. Some deputies also let high-risk inmates mix with low-security inmates and did little to intervene during brawls.