Prisons

Top Sheriff's Officials Allied With White Gang In L.A. Jails, Suit Says

A white-power gang operating inside the L.A. County jails had ties to sheriff's officials charged with running the lockups -- ties that led up as far as Undersheriff Paul Tanaka. That, at least, is one of the shocking allegations in a lawsuit filed in L.A. federal court this week. The plaintiffs ar ... More >>

Cocaine In Your Pocket? Could Be A Simple Misdemeanor Under Mark Leno's Proposal

State Sen. Mark Leno wants to do for cocaine, ecstasy and meth what he did for marijuana. That is, make possession of small amounts basically a ticket-worthy offense -- a misdemeanor. Some of you are no doubt cheering. Leno this week announced that he introduced a bill, SB 649, that would allow pr ... More >>

Ka Pasasouk: State Considered Northridge Suspect Prone To Violence

Would Ka Pasasouk, the man police believe murdered four people in Northridge last weekend, have been on the street had it not been for California's controversial prison-realignment program? A state prison official told us yes: He served his time and was due to get out last January in any case. The ... More >>

Teflon Sheriff Lee Baca, Undersheriff Paul Tanaka Slammed For Jail Violence

We call him the Teflon Sheriff because, despite more than a decade's worth of serious problems inside the L.A. jail system, woes that include gang-like cliques of tatted-up deputies, you keep electing Lee Baca as the county's top cop. Nothing seems to stick. Well, that might have changed today:

Gambling: New Combat Vets Plagued by Troubling Addiction

Cages

Californians, Angelenos May Have to Dig Deeper to Pay for Undocumented Immigrants Housed in State Prisons and County Jails

The White House debuted its 2013 fiscal year budget Monday, and buried in the 250-page document is one line item could have big ramifications for L.A. County jails--the federal government slashed funding for the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program by two-thirds compared to the previous year. T ... More >>

Short Eyes

Death Row Records Photographer 
Simone Green Has the Last Laugh

By Jesse Serwer At the height of Death Row Records' notoriety, Simone Green's job was to document daily activity at the label. Naturally, then, she was able to fill a book with the details. "The last time I'd seen bullying that went on like it did at Death Row, I was in elementary school," says Gr ... More >>

Teflon Sheriff Lee Baca Can Now Decide Inmate Sentences: D.A. Steve Cooley Concerned About More Bad Guys on L.A. Streets

D.A. Steve Cooley is not liking 'realignment.'​If you think Sheriff Lee Baca's L.A. County Jails are a mess now, what with years'-old allegations of deputies beating inmates and a reported system of problem cops being assigned to lockup duty, just wait. You see, under California's inmate-redu ... More >>

Prisoners, Parolees Headed to L.A. Under State Prison Downsizing: LAPD Chief Beck Says 150 Cops Will be Cut From Streets to Handle Them

Some of the worst news about L.A.'s response to the transfer of thousands of state prisoners and parolees to county jails and local police oversight is that the LAPD says it will need to take 150 officers off the streets to deal with them. In a geographically vast city with less than 10,000 officer ... More >>

Lyralisa Stevens, Transgender Inmate Serving Time For SoCal Murder, Has no Right to Taxpayer-Funded Sex Change, Court Rules

Lyralisa Stevens.​A transgender inmate behind bars for a Southern California murder doesn't have a right to a state-funded sex-change operation, California's First District Court of Appeal ruled this week. Lyralisa Stevens, serving 50-years to life for killing a roommate in a San Bernardino h ... More >>

Villaraigosa's Conference of Mayors Says Yes to Drugs, No to U.S. Drug War

Urban mayors are pro-weed, it seems.​It didn't take long after they elected L.A.'s Antonio Villaraigosa as president for the U.S. Conference of Mayors to take a hard left turn into druggy territory. The group this week declared that America's war on drugs is a failure, a statement that has pr ... More >>

Prisoner Release Sees 450 California Convicts With 'High Risk For Violence' Accidentally Let Out

Patrick HealyZachariah Lehnen, accused in Culver City double homicide, was free on non-revocable parole.​As state officials grapple with this week's U.S. Supreme Court ruling ordering California to unleash 33,000 prisoners within the next two years there's some evidence today that maybe correc ... More >>

WTF: Governor Jerry Brown Gifts Expensive Vacation Perks to Prison Guards Amid California Budget Massacre

Why so glum? It's payday!​There goes our optimistic theory that, because repeat Governor Jerry Brown is at the end of his, erm, working years, he might operate at least somewhat freely of California's political lobbying machine. Ha! But of course not. Not even thrifty people's hero Brown can ... More >>

Newt Gingrich and the NAACP, Together Over Criminal Justice Reform and Century Blvd. Billboard

NAACPPremiering on Century Blvd.​What do Newt Gingrich and the NAACP have in common? Starting today, it's a new billboard in town. The latest addition to LA's sea of giant-ass signs is on Century Boulevard, compliments of the NAACP, and states that in the past 23 years state spending on jails ha ... More >>

More Black Men in Prison, Penal System, Than Were Enslaved in 1850, Author Michelle Alexander Tells L.A. Area Audience

YouTubeMichelle Alexander.​It was a tall claim. Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness told a Pasadena crowd last week that more African American men are in the penal system now than were enslaved in 1850. More African American men are ... More >>

Charles Manson Cell Phone Prison Call On Tape; Big Killers, Mexican Mafia And 8,675 Criminals Use Smuggled Cells In California Prisons

Charles Manson on the line.​Charles Manson had a smuggled cell phone in prison. CBS has truly creepy audio of Manson singing in a sicko call to the outside world. The Weekly explained the ugly game by legislators Mark Leno and Tom Ammiano, who head public safety committees in Sacramento -- and ... More >>

San Yun King's killer, one-man crime machine Larry Stewart, escapes California's Death Row thanks to a single juror holdout, D.A. decides

Stewart won't get the tour​Larry Stewart, the vicious crime machine who murdered the quiet, innocent, liquor store owner Sang Yun "Sam" Kim, severely beating and choking the South Los Angeles shopkeeper with his own belt -- then chemically burning him with bleach -- has escaped Death Row. Ste ... More >>

Marijuana Boosters Say California Legalization Would Save State Lots Of Cash

​The pro-marijuana Drug Policy Alliance on Wednesday hailed a state Legislative Analyst's report (PDF) on Prop. 19, the November ballot initiative that would fully legalize marijuana in the state, saying, "The report found that Proposition 19 would enable California to steer police resources t ... More >>

Gov. Says Send Illegal Inmates To Mexico

​Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday suggested that the state could save money by sending the 20,000 illegal immigrants he says are incarcerated by California to Mexico on the state's dime. " ... We can do so much better in the prison system alone if we can go and take inmates -- for instanc ... More >>

UCLA Prof Proposes Sending Convicts To College

UCLAChon A. Noriega.​As the state is poised to embark upon a historic prisoner release, one professor argues that sending convicts to college could save the state hundreds of millions of dollars in lockup costs while at the same time turning career criminals in productive members of society. ... More >>

GIRLS GONE (REALLY) WILD

L.A. Police Union Defies The Governor With A Wink And A Nod

​The Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union the represents rank-and-file members of the Los Angeles Police Department, on Friday issued a statement calling Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's prisoner-release plan "dangerous and unacceptable." The governor's plan was submitted to a three-ju ... More >>

The Assassination of Deputy Abel Escalante

A young father had nothing to do with LAPD’s killing of Danny Leon. But he was slain for it

Death Row Records, Post-Suge Knight, Returns with Petey Pablo to Say What's Up from Canada

It's hard to even write this: Toronto-based Death Row Records announced today that the company will be issuing a sampler in conjunction with National Record Store Day, which takes place around the country on April 18. The label, founded in LA by Dr. Dre and Suge Knight, released some of the most i ... More >>

Death Row's G-Funk Fire Sale

Queer Town: The Unexpected Twists of Gay Marriage

Whenever the accepted norms of society are changed, something unexpected always seems to pop up. With gay marriage in California, this truism of sorts is already starting to play out. According to a report in the Sacramento-based Capitol Weekly, the California Department of Corrections has now give ... More >>

Ring of Fire

A committed vegan, the Earth Liberation Front, and the FBI

Tookie’s Inhumanity

An argument for sparing a cold-blooded killer

Not So Rosy, Jim

What Hahn left out of his state-of-the-city message

The Torture Files

Iraqi detainees allege mistreatment and abuse

No Escape for an O.G.

Kershaun “Li’l Monster” Scott thought South-Central was tough. Then he moved to Kern County

Zen and the Art of Sheriffing

Lee Baca’s Khaki Revolution

An Unexpected Stay of Execution

Supreme Court reaffirms inmates’ right to fair trial

The Terror War on Drugs

The martyrdom of Steve Treleaven

Mercy on Death Row

A Third Reprieve

One of California’s most notorious death-row inmates wants to be spared — again

Who Should Die?

Fire in the Belly

The hasty departure of Richard Polanco

The Insane System

Judge considers whether convicted killer is mentally fit to halt his appeals

Beaver Cleaver in Hell

Land of Secrets

Public officials should know what they do is public

Joey Garcia Tells All

Inmate testifies that police convicted wrong man for murder that he committed

UnLucky Strike

The story behind California's worst law

Life on the Farm

Director Liz Garbus' clear-eyed vision

Death Row Reprieve

Ruling stalls execution for Kelly, dozens more

Living in Solitary

Samuel Beckett and the San Quentin Drama Workshop

The Alienists

Where experts divide, jury must decide