Filed in late October, a federal class-action lawsuit against Los Angeles County’s women’s jail describes a place where, inmates say, even the ordinary act of showering could feel exposed. Inside the Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood, privacy was not something many women believed they could assume. According to the complaint, some came to regard the possibility of being watched while undressing as simply part of incarceration.
For Brian Dunn, the civil-rights attorney representing the plaintiffs, what disturbed him most was how routine the allegations had become. What began as a single complaint of alleged sexual misconduct soon revealed, he said, a pattern repeated across the facility — enough to suggest not an isolated incident, but a deeper institutional failure.
Dunn said his office first became involved after a woman incarcerated at the facility contacted them alleging inappropriate conduct by a correctional officer. When Dunn and his team visited the jail, he said, they began hearing similar accounts from other inmates.
“We started seeing it over and over again,” Dunn said.
Several women, he said, described guards watching them while they showered, sometimes from a vantage point inmates referred to as the “cop shop.” Under federal standards established by the Prison Rape Elimination Act, opposite-gender staff are generally prohibited from viewing incarcerated individuals in a state of undress except in emergency situations. Dunn said complaints about such conduct had circulated internally for years.
“It was so widespread… the inmates themselves actually thought this was part of what it meant to be in jail,” Dunn said.
As more inmates came forward, Dunn said, the growing number of similar allegations suggested the problem extended beyond individual encounters and pointed toward a broader pattern. His team concluded the case would be better pursued as a class action rather than a series of individual lawsuits. A class action, he said, allows women with shared claims to pursue relief collectively and can force broader institutional changes beyond compensation for individual plaintiffs.
“When you see the same thing happening to so many people, it’s not just about one person anymore,” Dunn said. “It’s about fixing the system.”
Dunn added that the facility’s transient population — where women are frequently transferred, released, or moved through the system — may also have helped complaints dissipate before producing lasting scrutiny.
“If these guys are this comfortable doing this on this level, there’s no accountability at all,” Dunn said. “It’s a sign of a systemic problem.”
The Century Regional Detention Facility, opened in 2006, is the nation’s largest women’s jail and houses a constantly shifting population of inmates awaiting trial or serving shorter sentences. The size and turnover of the facility have long complicated oversight, with civil-rights advocates and prior reporting pointing to recurring concerns across the county jail system involving inmate safety, staffing practices, and accountability mechanisms.
County officials dispute that misconduct is tolerated inside the facility.
In a detailed email response to LA Focus, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said it maintains a zero-tolerance policy toward sexual abuse or harassment and investigates every allegation thoroughly.
“The Department takes all allegations of sexual misconduct, abuse of authority, and violations of Department policy extremely seriously,” officials said in the statement.
The Department confirmed that nine Prison Rape Elimination Act cases connected to CRDF have been referred to either the Internal Affairs Bureau or the Internal Criminal Investigations Bureau and remain under active investigation, with any criminal findings subject to review by the District Attorney’s Office.
The Department outlined mandatory training programs, reporting procedures, and monthly PREA meetings intended to address inmate safety concerns, and said it continues to evaluate supervision practices and internal safeguards. Officials did not directly address whether inmates had been viewed by opposite-gender staff while showering outside emergency circumstances.
Dunn said that since the lawsuit was filed, some conditions inside the facility appear to have shifted, including the increased presence of female guards in certain areas and temporary privacy measures installed near shower locations. Whether those changes represent lasting reform or a response to legal scrutiny remains unclear as the case moves forward.
The lawsuit now moves into its early procedural stages, where attorneys are seeking certification from a federal judge to allow the case to proceed as a class action. Dunn said the legal team has continued gathering declarations from former and current inmates as additional women come forward.
Unlike many prison-related lawsuits, Dunn noted, several plaintiffs chose to file under their real names rather than anonymously, a decision he said reflects both the scale of the allegations and the desire among some women to be publicly heard.
“They want people to know this happened,” Dunn said. “They want accountability.”
Dunn said the case underscores how conditions inside correctional facilities can remain largely invisible unless brought into public view through litigation or media attention. Allegations of abuse, he said, often persist precisely because they unfold in places rarely seen by the outside world.
“This goes on because it goes on behind closed doors,” Dunn said. “The public never knows about it.”
For Dunn, the broader issue extends beyond the courtroom. “Even if someone is behind bars, they’re still American citizens,” he said. “They’re still people. They deserve to be treated with humanity.”