Sheriff’s, Probation Litigation Cost L.A. County Taxpayers $1 Billion, Study Finds

As Los Angeles County considers slashing billions from its budget for the second year in a row to deal with federal spending cuts, wildfire recovery and other fiscal strains, a new report is highlighting how many taxpayer dollars have gone to legal costs involving law enforcement and jails.

The May 2026 report by Million Dollar Hoods at UCLA found that the L.A. County sheriff’s and probation departments have cost the county more than $1 billion on litigation expenses, including settlements, judgments and legal fees, over a 12-year period. Many of the cases involved allegations of excessive force and inadequate jail facility conditions, according to the report, which analyzed data from the Office of County Counsel Litigation from 2013 to 2025 to determine the cost to taxpayers.

With the L.A. County Board of Supervisors poised to vote as soon as next week on the $48.8 billion budget that includes $3.7 billion in cuts over the prior year’s spending, advocacy groups are pointing to the report findings as a sign of misplaced priorities by county officials who have failed to enact key criminal justice reforms. 

That includes the county’s long-delayed plan to close Men’s Central Jail, which supervisors in 2021 voted to close within two years under pressure to address the 1960s-era facility’s longstanding problems with overcrowding, unsafe conditions and in-custody deaths. Years later, the closure plans, which included community-based care and diversion programs, have not moved forward. 

If officials had implemented those plans, while prioritizing care and treatment services and other alternatives to incarceration, activists say, the legal bills being footed by L.A. County taxpayers could have been reduced.

“If these services were funded, we would not be seeing these large settlements against L.A. County,” said Janet Asante, lead organizer with the JusticeLA Coalition. 

“We’re not in any way, shape or form saying that those people are not deserving of some kind of compensation from the violence that they’ve had to experience from picking people who they’re supposed to protect,” said David C. Turner III, associate director of Million Dollar Hoods, a research project that seeks to document the human and fiscal costs of policing and incarceration. “What we’re suggesting is that we need to start rethinking how it is we’re spending money publicly if a group that’s supposed to protect us is costing us more money than it is we save.” 

County spokesperson Elizabeth Marcellino said in an emailed statement that the county was “unable to verify the figures in the report within the requested timeframe but believe there are some errors. … It is important to note that claims and lawsuits settled each year reflect cases brought years earlier, so that the costs cited in the Million Dollar Hoods analysis do not reflect current policies and corrective actions.”

Helen Chavez, a spokesperson for Supervisor Kathryn Barger, said in an email that Barger had not reviewed the full Million Dollar Hoods report and was “not in a position to comment on the report’s analysis or conclusions at this time.” 

Chavez said that Barger believes her vote on the county’s budget “must be informed by a holistic assessment of what it will take to safely and responsibly close Men’s Central Jail while meeting the County’s legal obligations. Those obligations include providing care, treatment, and rehabilitation services to individuals in custody, as well as maintaining secure, locked facilities for those who cannot legally be released into the community.”

The offices of the four other county supervisors — Hilda Solis, Holly Mitchell, Lindsey Horvath and Janice Hahn — did not respond to requests for comment.

The JusticeLA Coalition, which includes members of the Million Dollar Hoods project and the ACLU of Southern California, wants county supervisors to include $24 million in the budget to implement the closure of Men’s Central Jail and to reject a $60 million expansion project planned at the Peter J. Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic. 

Men’s Central Jail has been the site of dozens of the 143 jail deaths recorded since the start of 2023. California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit last year alleging inhumane conditions throughout the county jail system. The lawsuit describes overcrowded facilities where cells are infested with rats and roaches, have broken, overflowing toilets, where incarcerated people are given little or no access to soap, toilet paper and menstrual products, are served moldy food and contaminated water, and where many people are unable to access medical and mental health care. 

The Million Dollar Hoods report charges that the litigation costs should be viewed as “indicators of human impact and systemic failure,” and that without policy change the costs would be normalized as “as the price of doing business, rather than treating them as urgent warning signs.” 

Among those pushing county supervisors to shift their budget priorities are families whose loved ones have alleged wrongful death or abuse at the hands of county law enforcement. 

One of them is Ivette Correa, whose brother Juan Correa Jr. died during his incarceration at Men’s Central Jail in 2017. She said her brother was a quiet but social young man who enjoyed writing rap lyrics. But after spending time in the county jail system, she said, he began to experience issues managing his mental health. Juan’s schizophrenia and psychotic fits had led to further incarceration. 

During his final stay at Men’s Central Jail, he died in the jail’s shower after being pepper sprayed repeatedly.

“These facilities subject people to abuse, subject them to conditions that are harmful,” Ivette Correa said. “No money is obligated to facilities that could help people. Why, when it’s something to protect people’s civil rights, there’s no funding for it?”

Juan Manuel Correa Sr. and Maria A. Correa, the father and mother of Juan Manuel Correa Jr., sued L.A. County in 2018 for wrongful death, negligence and civil rights violations. They reached a $1.5 million settlement with the county in 2020.

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