Last week, Sheriff Lee Baca of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department (LASD) announced that he agrees with and plans to implement all of the 63 recommended reforms (pdf) issued by the Citizen's Commission on Jail Violence (CCJV). Baca's decision to embrace the reforms ? he said, "I couldn't have written them better myself" ? was met with cautious optimism by the CCJV, which was formed last year in the wake of scathing reports to investigate widespread and systemic abuses in the county jails. The questions remain, however, why it has taken the sheriff so long to actually acknowledge that the jail system he oversees is rife with abuse; and why, considering his failure to do so until now, he still has a job.

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