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L.A. County Jail Reforms Have UCLA Luskin’s Fingerprints All Over Them Numerous members of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs contributed to a report that could result in extensive changes throughout Los Angeles County jails. Social Welfare lecturer Miriam Krinsky, who teaches Public Policy for Children and Youth in the spring quarter at UCLA Luskin, was the executive director of the Citizens’ Commission on Jail Violence, leading a panel appointed by the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors to investigate the use of excessive force in jails. The report, which was delivered in September, filled 193 pages with more than 60 recommendations to address problems in the system. The group spoke with over 150 witnesses and experts and received more than 35,000 pages of documents. Shortly after it was unveiled, L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca agreed with all of the commission’s findings and began working to improve the problems through the commission’s recommendations. Krinsky, who has led other projects overseeing law enforcement, acted quickly to involve current and former Public Policy students in the summer-long process. “We needed some thinkers who were not law school graduates,” she said. Krinsky ultimately had six Public Policy students working on this project, including two who served as project managers, “although the reality is that they were my right and left hands,”
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LUSKIN Forum | WINTER 2013