Men's Central Jail is an imposing hulk of concrete and steel that hides a lot of vulnerabilities.
 
"The plumbing!" operations Sgt. George Hosac said with a grimace while walking over to a row of jail cells. "Pipes break and it's not unusual to see water coming out of the ceiling."
 
Toilets inside jail cells occasionally flood, he added, and inmates have to be taken out so they are not standing in their own sewage.
 
Both Sheriff Lee Baca and advocates for inmates agree the largest jail in the world - built nearly half a century ago - should be condemned.
 
They differ, however, on what to do next.
 
Baca is proposing to spend at least $1 billion to tear down all or a portion of Men's Central Jail and erect a new jail in its place. If approved, it would be the county government's largest building project in history by far.
 
The American Civil Liberties Union, on the other hand, believes taxpayers should not spend even a penny on a new jail.
 
Instead, it is calling for shrinking the inmate population in the county's eight-jail system by relying more on electronic monitoring devices such as ankle bracelets.
 
The matter may soon come to a head.
 
After the county Board of Supervisors balked at the $1.4billion price tag of his initial proposal in October, Baca is preparing to submit a scaled-back plan within weeks.

"We believe it could save us $300 million to $400 million," he said. "Then it becomes a little more reasonable if it's $1 billion or less."
 
Meanwhile, the ACLU intends to present next month the findings of an independent study on how the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department can close the jail by releasing low-level inmates and supervising them using ankle bracelets instead.
 
"The fact that MCJ is a horror and a nightmare and needs to be closed doesn't mean that we need another jail," said Margaret Winter, associate director of the ACLU National Prison Project.
 
"Based on the data (collected for the pending study), there are literally thousands of low-level offenders who can be safely released, who are there for no reason than that bail was set unreasonably high and their families are unable to pay."

Men's Central Jail currently holds about 4,000 inmates in two buildings - one built in 1963 for $16.3 million, and another built in 1976 for $35million.

In October, Baca urged the board to replace the entire Men's Central Jail at a cost of $1.2 billion and then spend an additional $197 million to build a "village-style" housing facility for women inmates at Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic.

His revised proposal for Men's Central Jail is to tear down only its "old side," saying the rest of the building is still "very compatible to better housing for inmates."

Assistant Sheriff Cecil Rhambo argued that continuing to use the jail's "old side" is impractical.

"As with any old structure, it's starting to become very costly to maintain," he said. "There are a lot of plumbing issues.

"Also, the design is linear so that deputies have to physically walk the rows to see inside the cell," he added. "That's not as secure."

During a recent tour of the jail, Hosac showed how the cells are arranged in single rows, accessible only via a long corridor.

Deputies walk the entire length of the corridor hourly to conduct inspections but, during the gap, an inmate could conceivably work on creating a shiv out of his shaving razor without being seen.

"This setup is not good for watching inmates," Hosac said. "You can't monitor them like they should be monitored."

Baca contended that building a new jail would save money in the long run because of lower staffing, maintenance and utility costs.

County Chief Executive Officer William Fujioka said in October it made sense to embark on this infrastructure project during the economic downturn.

Waiting for several years could mean "the cost will go up significantly, in the hundreds of millions of dollars more," he said then.

But Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky remains skeptical and wants to look at several options before making a decision.

"That's what all departments say when they want to borrow a billion, they always say it's going to save money. It never saves money," he said.

"It's like me saying interest rates are at an all-time low so I ought to buy that Bentley," Yaroslavsky added. "Fact is, I can't afford a Bentley - whether it's at 1 percent interest or 10 percent interest - and I don't think the county can afford $1billion on a jail."

The largest bond that the county has taken out before was $400 million.

Yaroslavsky noted the unprecedented amount that Baca wants to borrow through bonds will have to be paid back with interest.

"That's money that will not go to other vital county services - tree-trimming, street paving, law enforcement itself, health care, child welfare," Yaroslavsky said. "All the things we pay for out of our budget will be compromised to some degree."

ACLU legal director Peter Eliasberg said the county spends about $77 a day to incarcerate an inmate and only about $15 to $25 a day to monitor them with an ankle bracelet.

Citing a recent study by the Vera Institute of Justice, he contends the county's jail system holds thousands of low-level, nonviolent inmates who are not a danger to the community.

"It identified people who spend days in jail for a drunk driving offense," Eliasberg said. "I'm not saying drunk driving is not a problem or whatever, but the question is whether you should be incarcerating somebody at a huge cost, or making sure they're not driving?

Eliasberg urged the board not to make a decision until it has seen the findings of another study, due in January, on how Men's Central Jail can be closed by safely reducing the county's overall inmate population.
He added that other jurisdictions in the country have taken steps to release nonviolent criminals and monitor them electronically, without creating a spike in crime.

"These decisions should not be based on a kind of irrational, arbitrary and frankly hysterical reaction," Eliasberg said.

"The county of Los Angeles and the state of California are in major fiscal crisis in part because of the addiction to incarceration," he added. "State and local governments across the nation are waking up and realizing that there's a better, smarter and safer way to do this, and L.A. County ought to be in the vanguard instead of bringing up the rear."