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Article: Prisoners Still Being Freed to Ease Jail Overcrowding
- Article from:
- Los Angeles Sentinel
- Article date:
- November 7, 1996
- Author:
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Dennis Anderson
Los Angeles Sentinel
11-07-1996
Prisoners Still Being Freed to Ease Jail Overcrowding.
The Los Angeles County jail system, called the "Free World's largest lockup," is a pressure cooker of 20,000 prisoners cramped into space built for little more than half that many.
The safety valve on the pressure cooker is the early release of prisoners, including some who serve as little as one-fourth of their sentences for offenses such as assault, burglary and car theft.
The steam also gets let out in other ways.
Cellblock brawls, ranging from gang fights to full-fledged riots, are common inside the archipelago of eight separate jails that confine the already guilty alongside those ...