Introducing male inmates into the private space of female inmates is beyond idiotic. It’s a recipe for disaster.
As the former sheriff of Los Angeles County, I can say unequivocally that any law enforcement agency charged with maintaining a state prison, a county jail, or even an overnight holding facility, has the responsibility of providing for the care of every person detained therein.
In the old days, I remember new inmates who claimed to be transsexual were referred to our medical staff.
The rule that was enforced was simple, yet extremely effective: If there was something hanging, the inmate was housed in the men’s jails. If not, then the inmate was transferred to the female facility. Shockingly, it worked every time!
State prisons only have convicted felons in California, and there are both male and female facilities.
State law mandates that sheriffs run county jails, not judges.
At one point during almost four decades in law enforcement, I was assigned to the Inmate Reception Center for male inmates in downtown Los Angeles. That was followed by a stint as the watch commander of the women’s jail, known as the Century Regional Detention Facility. That facility housed approximately 2,100 female inmates at any given time.
A separate male inmate processing center was walled off from contact with the female inmate population.
The reasons were obvious.
But leave it to the geniuses in Sacramento to disagree.
They decided that virtue signaling was more important than the core responsibility of providing physical safety and security to vulnerable populations within the confines of our prisons and jails.
Radical trans ideology has made its way into public policy, with Gov. Gavin Newsom gleefully signing off on state Sen. Scott Wiener’s SB 132 in 2020, in spite of the dire warnings from correctional administrators everywhere.
Allegations of rapes, pregnancies, and the spread of HIV within correctional settings can be attributed directly to the governor and state legislature’s callous indifference to the physical and social needs of the female inmate population.
Tremaine Deon Carroll, who served time at the women’s prison in Chowchilla, was charged with raping fellow inmates. CDCThat is why the federal investigation of California’s prisons is welcome. One can expect many lawsuits to follow, with taxpayers footing the bill. As the saying goes: If it’s predictable, it’s preventable.
Our county jail system to this day houses LGBTQ inmates segregated from the general population. State law mandates that sheriffs, not judges, run county jails.
The same goes for state prisons. However, when it comes to gender, prison administrators have to follow directions from the governor’s office.
Every lawsuit that follows this insane policy will examine the conditions of confinement in every facility.
I would love nothing more than to see politicians on the stand, under oath, defending the nightmare they’ve created for incarcerated women (real ones) across the state.
Alex Villanueva was sheriff of LA County from 2018 to 2022. He changed parties from Democrat to Republican and is running to regain the office in 2026.
