Los Angeles County officials have announced they will no longer pursue a plan to reduce the number of inmates in county jails, a move likely to upset some in the criminal justice reform community in America’s most populous county. 

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors’ public agenda for Tuesday included a plan for “Los Angeles County to take actionable next steps to depopulate and decarcerate the Los Angeles County jails.” The agenda claims that there is a “humanitarian crisis” in these facilities.

Supervisor Hilda Solis introduced the amendment alongside her colleague, Supervisor Lindsey Horvath. Ms. Solis announced on Monday that she would withdraw the proposal after hearing from “stakeholders … who feel the motion is not doing enough, and those who feel it’s doing too much.”

Before the issue could even be discussed by the board, it was criticized by local law enforcement and elected officials. The Los Angeles County Police Chiefs Association released a statement on Sunday denouncing the proposal.

The plan would “exacerbate our current plight” amid “surging crime rates,” the police chiefs wrote. “There is nothing in the motion that would cause a reasonable person to believe there has been any conversation about whether closure is feasible without concrete alternatives heavily weighted toward community safety.”

Supervisor Kathryn Barger announced she could not support the proposal, saying that any criminal reforms require “collaboration and input from law enforcement partners.” The chairwoman of the board, Supervisor Janice Hahn, also opposed the plan. 

The proposal called on local law enforcement officials to “release individuals with aggregate bail amounts set at $50,000 or below.” According to the county’s bail guidelines from 2022, many violent crimes carry a bail of $50,000 or less, including vehicular manslaughter, second-degree robbery, battery with serious bodily injury, and assault with a firearm or deadly weapon, among others. 

Another key point of the plan was to make permanent a “zero-bail” policy that was adopted temporarily during the Covid-19 pandemic. Those affected by the zero-bail plan include “those accused of low-level offenses, infractions, misdemeanors, and some felony offenses.”

The depopulation plan was born out of the 2020 George Floyd protests, when the board of supervisors voted to permanently close — and not replace — the county Men’s Central Jail. Reducing the number of inmates, arrests, and pretrial detentions is seen as a critical first step in slowly releasing criminals from the jail before the facility can be abolished. 

The plan, known as “Care First, Jails Last,” calls on the county and its municipalities to decriminalize “drug use, public intoxication, fare evasion, and driving without a license” so that fewer men will be arrested in the first place.