LOS ANGELES — Please attribute the following statement to Peter Eliasberg, chief counsel and Manheim Family attorney for First Amendment Rights at the ACLU of Southern California in regards to the L.A. County Board of Supervisors' decisions to build a mental health treatment facility instead of a mental health jail in Downtown L.A. and to cancel plans for a women’s jail in Mira Loma:
"We applaud the Board of Supervisors for killing the plan to build a women's jail in Mira Loma, a costly and unnecessary project we and other groups have long opposed.
"We are also encouraged that the board recognized the folly of building a large mental health jail downtown. Its statements about providing a mental health treatment center instead of a jail are heartening. However, we are concerned that the current plan provides for a massive, centralized facility. It has been widely demonstrated that quality mental health care is far more effectively provided by smaller, community-based programs and facilities."
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