State Prison Director to Take Over as L.A. County Jails Operations Head

A new assistant sheriff is headed to town to take over jail operations, Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell announced Tuesday.

Kelly Harrington, who comes from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, was appointed following a nationwide search. Harrington will replace Assistant Sheriff Terri McDonald, who announced her retirement in December.

"It is my firm belief that Kelly's background and experience in running one of the nation's largest state prison systems makes him uniquely qualified to continue the extraordinary work that his predecessor Terri McDonald began," McDonnell said.

Harrington oversaw the state's adult inmate population for just over a year in his role as director or acting director of the CDCR's Division of Adult Institutions. Prior to that, he held posts in facility operations and as the associate director of the department's High Security Mission.

Harrington was the warden at Kern Valley State Prison from 2008-10 and held a variety of positions at Wasco State Prison for the five years before that.

McDonnell said Harrington -- who is expected to move from Sacramento to Los Angeles at the end of the month -- brings "a wealth of experience in promoting and sustaining improvements in the field of corrections today."

In an interview posted on the CDCR website last year, Harrington talked about a cultural shift toward rehabilitative efforts, saying overcrowded prisons had limited options for inmates.

"When you're worried about basic needs such as housing and security, you're more focused on "Where's the next bed?"' Harrington said. "When you're overcrowded, you tighten up more, you do more searches, you tend to have more violence, so you have increased lockdowns and modified programs."

But once prison populations were reduced -- in part by making low-level offenders the responsibility of county jails -- getting inmates into educational and other rehabilitation programs was easier.

"Overcoming the challenges is just about collaborating and communication between all of the areas from the top down," Harrington said at the time.

As LASD's assistant sheriff for custody operations, Harrington will be responsible for seven jails with roughly 18,000 inmates. He will take on the plan to replace the Men's Central Jail with a Correctional Treatment Center and the county's efforts to improve treatment of mentally ill inmates in what amounts to one of the largest mental health facilities in the country.

McDonnell praised the outgoing custody chief.

"Assistant Sheriff Terri McDonald has led the LASD through complex negotiations with the U.S. Department of Justice and was able to achieve a federal settlement that brings committed resources and best practices to our jail system," McDonnell said. "We are grateful to Terri for leaving the department better than she found it and know that she will be successful in her future endeavors."

McDonald was hired three years ago by then-sheriff Lee Baca to reform the jail system, under fire at the time for promoting a culture that tolerated and even advocated violence against inmates.

--City News Service, photo courtesy of the CDCR