L.A. Men's Central Jail and Twin Towers Jail

The Los Angeles Men’s Central Jail (LAMCJ) is one of the largest, deadliest and most notorious jails in the U.S., known for its history of brutal violence, overcrowding, and inhumane conditions. Located in downtown Los Angeles, it houses thousands of mainly poor black and Latino inmates, including those awaiting trials and those serving short sentences. As of June 2026, about 50% of incarcerated people in L.A. County jails are pretrial detainees who have not been sentenced for any crimes. Many are held in custody because they cannot afford to pay bail. Right next to LAMCJ is Twin Towers Jail (TTJ) which was ranked one of the ten worst county jails in the U.S. in 2013. The overflowing facility has prompted a large number of complaints received by the ACLU. This huge jail system is managed by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department (LASD).

The conditions of the LAMCJ have been described as a “slave ship” where inmates sleep on cold steel, with no bedding or blankets, and they lack medical care. In the first six months of 2026, 21 people have died in L.A. County jails, bringing the total to 144 deaths since the start of 2023. Although black people are 8% of the L.A. County population, they are 29% of the jail population. Latinos are 49% of the L.A. County population and are 54% of the jail population. TTJ has come under fire from human rights advocates for the use of psychiatric drugs to control prisoners.

For decades, the LASD has been ridden with gangs of sheriff deputies. A 2021 investigation showed there were at least 24 deputy gangs. LAMCJ has been a notorious home to deputy gangs such as the “2000 Boys” and “3000 Boys,” numbered for the bloc they worked on. According to a report by the Citizen’s Commission for Jail Violence, guards even wore gang tattoos and would “earn their ink” by beating inmates until their bones were broken. These deputy gangs have killed at least 40 inmates, at least ten of whom had a mental illness. Lawsuits related to the deputy gangs have cost L.A. County over $100 million in the past 30 years. This does not include the legal representation costs. L.A. County spent $229 million on legal payouts and lawyer bills last fiscal year. Nearly half of that money — $112 million — went to defend the Sheriffs Department against lawsuits, a 12% uptick from the year before.

Among the many black victims of LAMCJ and TTJ are John Horton, Jalani Lovett and Stanley Wilson, Jr., a former cornerback with the Detroit Lions. Stanley’s mother, D. Pulane Lucas, John’s mother Helen Jones and Jalani’s mother Terry Lovett, have been among organizers of annual Mother’s Day vigils and rallies at the jail, seeking answers about their sons’ deaths.

A regular supporter of those rallies, and OPA endorser, Terence Keel, is a professor at UCLA and principal investigator of the Coroner Report Project within the UCLA Lab for BioCritical Studies. His research team is documenting how coroners’ reports are failing to tell the truth about Americans who die in jail and during arrest.

Professor Keel’s latest book The Coroner’s Silence: Death Records and the Hidden Victims of Police Violence (Beacon Press, 2025) was inspired by the death of 22-year-old John Horton on March 30, 2009 inside Men’s Central Jail. In 2020 Professor Keel met Helen Jones, a community organizer with Dignity and Power Now, “a grassroots organization based in Los Angeles committed to transforming what justice looks like throughout the county and developing alternatives to incarceration.” She did not believe the coroner’s report that her son committed suicide, and Professor Keel worked with her in her search for answers. Horton was in solitary confinement, and evidence of recent bodily injury of unclear origin was enough to change his death from suicide to “undetermined.” This is explained in detail in the first chapter of The Coroner’s Silence. Helen’s search for answers and for the people who killed her son continues.

In 2021 the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to close LAMCJ, pressed by lawsuits’ mounting expenses and embarrassed by press coverage of the gangs metastasizing in the LASD. But the jail remains open, a cesspool of death and abuse. Unite the call “Shut It Down!” with “Open Police Archives” and expose the dirty secrets the cops, and the politicians who defend them, are hiding! We demand that the jail archives be open to public scrutiny!