150 Inmates Protest Jail Conditions

LANCASTER — Protesting what they called bad food, too few phones and a ban on smoking, 150 inmates at the Mira Loma Detention Facility refused to reenter their barracks after breakfast Wednesday.

The inmates complied almost three hours later when Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies from the department’s Lancaster station and agents of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service gathered at the jail in a show of force. No damage or injuries were reported.

Mira Loma is a Los Angeles County jail that is leased by the INS to house federal detainees. Most of the 150 inmates involved in Wednesday’s protest were Latinos awaiting deportation hearings, Sheriff’s Department spokesman Henry Garza said. He said that 12 members of the group were disciplined.

“They were newcomers and it looks like they wanted to see how far they could push the guards,” Garza said.

Garza also challenged some of the prisoners’ complaints. “Yeah, the food was so bad . . . that’s why they ate all we gave them.”

Mira Loma officials were also addressing the scarcity of telephones inside the facility and had already planned to install more, Garza said.

The smoking ban may have confused some of the prisoners, Garza said, because smoking is allowed in most federal facilities but not in county lockups.