City Council has approved a plan to hire 3 more jailers to bring Culver City "in compliance with Class 1 jail regulations immediately before someone hurts themselves."
The proposal, which would cost of $282,042.00 per year, was passed by a 4-1 vote at the council's last meeting on November 8. The dissenting vote was cast by Councilmember Daniel Lee.
Lee commented that although he opposed the proposal he is "glad we are voting on this now. We've been out of compliance for years and put people who are jailed to some degree of not [being] safe."
The jail staffing issue had been addressed on many occasions at council meetings in the past 18 months. In August, the Council rejected by a 3-2 vote a proposal to hire the controversial G4S Security Solutions to operate the understaffed Culver City Jail for the next five years after it emerged that the private security has been plagued by scandals in the United States.
Lacking any consensus on any staffing proposals, the Council then directed staff to work with contracted professionals to draft a report
and other assessments related to jail services.
According to the Culver City Police Department, the jail has been out of compliance with standards set by the California Board of Corrections for the past two years, lacking at least 3 jailers.
The 30-bed facility can hold people for up to 96 hours, and is required to have one jailer supervising at all time, police officials said. The jail houses about 120 people a month, usually no longer than overnight.
After the August meeting, Vice Mayor Alex Fisch stated on his twitter account: "I have been concerned for a long time that we are adequately looking after people we put in city jail. We need to be in compliance with Class 1 jail regulations immediately before someone hurts themselves."
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