Lack of buses keeps Los Angeles jail inmates from court appearances and contributes to overcrowding

LOS ANGELES — Up to one-third of the 12,000 inmates in Los Angeles County jails can’t get to their court appearances because of a shortage of functioning buses, and county supervisors this week advanced a proposal to try and fix the problem.

Officials said the breakdown of the inmate transportation system has kept the county’s seven jails overcrowded with incarcerated people who might have been released by a judge or sentenced to a state prison — if they had appeared in court. The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to implement an interim plan to get more working buses running from jails to courthouses and medical appointments. It includes borrowing vehicles from neighboring counties and asking the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to help transport inmates to state prisons.

The situation is aggravated by the fact that about half of those in county lockups, including the Men’s Central Jail, are awaiting pretrial and have not been sentenced for a crime, the Daily News reported. Many sit in jail because they can’t post bail. Others are awaiting sentencing. The average daily inmate population in the system was about 12,177 in 2023.

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