The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department  Forensic In-Patient Step Down program’s success has led to an annual graduation that not only celebrates the participants for the progress they have made in the program but also acknowledges the department’s commitment to excellence in custody operations.

On Dec. 16, 2025, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna joined by personnel from LASD Custody Services Division, District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman, Correctional Health Services, the Office of Inspector General, the Civilian Oversight Commission, and representatives from the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, celebrated the achievements of 13 Mental Health Assistants and 150 incarcerated individuals at the Fifth Annual Forensic In-Patient Stepdown Program at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility.

The Sheriff’s Department along with our collaborative partners remain committed to the growth and expansion of this program. The FIP Step Down Program takes a compassionate approach to caring for incarcerated individuals living with mental illness through inmate peer counseling approaches that embeds general population inmates into the Twin Towers psychiatric units.

The peer counselors, known as Mental Health Assistant inmates, live alongside patients and assist custody staff, and correctional health services personnel with delivering social activities, educational opportunities, life-skills training, and treatment services. The Mental Health Assistant inmates guide participants through a structured curriculum designed to meet theirneeds and encourage personal progress.

The FIP Step Down Program is a unique program that began in 2016, as a collaboration between LASD custody personnel, Correctional Health Services and inmates from the general population, who later became known as Mental Health Assistants. The program was created as a new and innovative way of providing care to individuals with serious mental illness.

The program was initially implemented at the Twin Tower Correctional Facility, in one of the “custody pods” – Module 141, which is a housing unit where inmates live in smaller groups around the central dayroom for easier security monitoring. At the time, there were only two Mental Health Assistant inmates but over time, custody personnel saw the positive impact the FIP Step Down Program was making and the program evolved from one floor, into four floors adding more Mental Health Assistants within the Twin Towers Correctional Facility.

Sheriff Robert Luna during the ceremony said, “There is something special happening in this place and with this program. This program does pave the way for considering a different alternative to the way to care for our incarcerated community, who does suffer from mental illness. To the best of our knowledge, there is no other county jail that provides anything similar to this FIP Step Down Program. That is a long way of saying, we are very proud of what we are doing here.”

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department along with county partners continue to look for innovative ways to provide resources and programs that help our incarcerated population develop skills, improve family ties and become productive citizens upon release.