This week the CEO will present to the Board of Supervisors a balanced budget that provides critically needed resources to support ongoing efforts by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to ensure the compassionate treatment of inmates in the nation’s largest jail system, while also continuing to develop smarter justice system approaches to those in our community suffering from mental illness.

I applaud the CEO’s work on this proposal and look forward to the Board of Supervisors’ consideration of this budget in the coming months.

While significant improvements have been made in our county’s jails over the past few years, we know that more work remains to be done. The proposed investment for the coming fiscal year will enhance our Custody Division’s ability to meet the demands of a complex job in an extremely difficult and dangerous environment.

I appreciate the CEO’s collaborative work with LASD to craft a budget that will enable us to move forward in addressing the staffing, training and supervision issues that are vital to operating a humane and constitutional jail system, while also continuing to develop new approaches that will enable us safely to divert individuals suffering from mental illness who would be better served in a noncustodial setting.

This proposed budget will also enable LASD to enhance our recruitment, hiring and training to meet new staffing demands without compromising the standards that our department and our community appropriately expect and deserve.

The proposed funding will give the LASD the ability to increase staffing in high-risk locations inside our jails including the outdated Men’s Central Jail, thereby enhancing the safety of both our employees and inmates. With these resources, LASD can begin to implement mandates we have embraced as part of ongoing litigation, while also creating a foundation for ongoing improvements we hope to put in place in the coming years.

New resources will support mental health services that will enable us better to assess the inmate population upon intake and throughout their detention and more strategically collaborate with our county partners in the departments of Public Health and Mental Health in order to enhance treatment for individuals destined to return to our community.

This investment is not simply a sound and humane one to make, but will also in the long run ensure that our communities are safer as we create a better long-term pathway for those in our county’s jails who too often cycle in and out of the justice system.

Our common goal with the CEO, the Board of Supervisors and the communities we serve is to continue LASD’s ongoing implementation of custody reforms. While these reforms were precipitated by past excessive force concerns and resulting legal mandates, I have been fully engaged with the Board of Supervisors, the CEO and the Department of Justice in crafting these recommendations and developing budget requests that will enable us to bring about expeditious and ongoing implementation of reforms.

This is a new era and an unprecedented opportunity for LASD to work with our county partners to move beyond past problems and eventually develop new approaches as well as a treatment facility that recognizes the dynamic needs of the large mentally ill population in our jails.

The CEO’s budget proposal is not only what is needed to serve our constituents; it will also help set the standard for what is right and reasonable and what is – and should be – expected of the largest jail system in the nation.

Jim McDonnell is sheriff of Los Angeles County.