Hahn Urges Improved Family Bonding, Job Training Opportunities for Incarcerated Women

LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved two related motions by Supervisor Janice Hahn that advance plans for a new career center as well as a long expected expansion to a family bonding room for women incarcerated at the Century Regional Detention Facility or CRDF, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s detention center in Lynwood. 

“Providing these opportunities for family bonding and job training during incarceration are the two most important things that we can move forward on. The funding is there. The need is urgent. So we can’t wait any longer,” said Hahn, whose district includes Lynwood. Hahn urged the Sheriff’s Department to move with urgency on both projects.

Hahn’s first motion directs the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the County’s Chief Executive Office’s real estate division to report back to the board regularly—with the first report in 45 days—on funding options and timelines for a renovation to an unused former California Superior Court courtroom located at CRDF to convert it into a family reunification room for the Sheriff Department’s Bonding, Empowering, and Reuniting or BEAR Families Program. The program is already available at the detention facility, but currently operates out of a smaller room that is outside of security, limiting the number of women who can participate. It offers children’s books, activities and toys so the mothers can step out of a carceral setting into a space that will allow them to play with, read to, and bond with their children.

In 2018, the Sheriff’s Department received a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice in the amount of $750,000 to create this space for the BEAR program. Since then, progress on the renovation has stalled for unknown reasons.

Hahn’s second motion directs the County’s Department of Economic Opportunity to work with the Sheriff’s Department and the Justice, Care, and Opportunities Department or JCOD to create a career center for women incarcerated at CRDF, allowing women to learn job skills and get hands-on experience that will help them get a job when they return home. In 2019, the county established a two-year Job Center pilot program at CRDF which saw 141 participants enrolled, 91 completing job readiness training, 25 completing skills training in construction or technology, and 25 obtaining employment post-release. That pilot ended in November 2022. For nearly three years, $1.2 million in state funding from AB 109 allocated to this particular initiative have gone unused. This motion directs county departments to utilize those funds to establish the permanent career center services at the facility.