As part of a public hearing Wednesday, May 10, on Los Angeles County’s proposed $43 billion budget, Sheriff Robert Luna asked for enough funding to recruit 1,100 deputies, double up on captains at problem Sheriff’s Stations, purchase a jail management system and supply new Tasers to deputies on patrol.
In addressing county jails that are tangled in lawsuits due to overcrowding, and that face a Department of Justice consent decree that ordered the county to improve jail conditions and halt excessive force, Luna wants to turn to technology. He wants to install a digital monitoring system to track the whereabouts of inmates and jail deputies, and said he was shocked that the county did not have a digital monitoring system.
“L.A. County can and should reduce staffing and related spending by moving away from this failed patrol strategy,” the group wrote in a letter to the board. “I recognize this loss as a massive failure on the part of the official bodies of stakeholders charged with protecting the lives of those in Probation’s care,” said Probation Oversight Commission Chair Esche Jackson, in a statement released Wednesday.