LA Public Press investigation revealed LA County women's jail had years of brown water, mold, and broken plumbing despite health citations

An LA Public Press investigation published August 5, 2026 reported that Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood, LA County's only jail for women, has had brown or foul-smelling drinking water, mold-covered shower floors, broken toilets that run day and night, and recurring infestations of gnats, worms, and maggots, per a report the county's own independent jail oversight body, the Sybil Brand Commission of Institutional Inspections, had submitted to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in June 2026, calling the conditions "an ongoing and unresolved public health crisis." The commission, which conducts unannounced bimonthly inspections of LA County jails, has documented broken plumbing at Century Regional at every inspection since 2022, and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has separately cited the LA County Sheriff's Department, which operates the facility, for environmental-health violations in its own annual inspections every year since 2022 -- including sinks spraying water, leaking toilets, elevated chlorine, and dead sewer moths and larvae found in sinks and showers.

Century Regional is LA County's only jail for women, with capacity for roughly 1,700 people; about half of those currently held are pretrial and have not been convicted of a crime. The June report followed a February 2026 motion by Supervisor Janice Hahn directing the commission to summarize the facility's documented hazards, after years of prior inspection reports found the same unresolved problems. The report said the Board of Supervisors has the "authority and the responsibility to compel the Sheriff's Department to meet its constitutional and statutory obligations" and urged the board to act.

LASD spokesperson Miesha McClendon said the department has made significant water-infrastructure investments over the past two decades and that preliminary testing found the water met safety standards, though the department did not provide copies of test results or name the testing vendor when asked. LA County Correctional Health Services said it had identified no illness clusters tied to the water but was reviewing the findings. The commission's report is separate from a lawsuit California Attorney General Rob Bonta's office filed against LA County, LASD, and Correctional Health Services in September 2025 over broader "unconstitutional and inhumane conditions" at county jails, following a 2021 civil-rights investigation into overcrowded, uninhabitable facilities contributing to a rise in in-custody deaths.