Sybil Brand Institute [SBI]

 

 

Sybil Brand Institute was a four story concrete building created in 1963, that served as a jail for women in Monterey Park, California. It was named after the activist of the same name, and set to be a minimum security facility. While it had the capacity to house 900-950 inmates, it had reached 2800 at one point in time, with between 700-850 people detained in 1982. 

The visitation area

 

That same year, there was a law suit between the inmates of Sybil Brand and the county of Los Angeles about unequal privileges between the female inmates at the facility, and male inmates at other facilities. For example, the women were only allowed one hour of outdoor recreation four times a week, whereas men were allowed daily recreation. I am unsure what the end result of this lawsuit was. 

 It  In 1997, the jail was closed due to damage from the 1994 Northridge Earthquake, which caused it to be in poor physical condition. It is still managed by the sheriff's department. When the jail was closed, the inmates were transferred to the newer Twin Towers Complex. There has been talk in the past of renovating the building and opening it again as a prison. It has modern looking prison rooms, hallways, rec areas, visitation areas, and cells. The walls had a pink color, having been a women's prison, but they tend to be painted over for filming purposes. Productions used to film at about 2-3 projects a month. It used to be rentable for about 400 dollars a day.

 

Since then, the jail has been used in movies and tv, such as Reno 911, Twin Peaks, Legally Blonde, Arrest and Trial, Gangland, X-Foiles, America's Most Wanted, Desperate Housewives,  and 24. The jail has housed notable prisoners such as Susan McDougall and Susan Atkins (where she confessed the infamous story to Ronnie Howard, Virginia Graham, and other women). 

In 2007, the jail had been under a 100 million dollar project to refurbish it which took 14 months, for nothing to happen. The plans for it were delayed, because it failed to meet many state standards. The paint on the walls peels off, tile and ceiling panels have popped off, and there is evidence of water damage to roof (as seen in pictures from 2010, the roof is leaking in multiple areas).

 

 On top of that, the cells in the jail are too small for current California regulations. It was scheduled to reopen in 2011 with the renovations. I could not find any official article stating when the reopening happened. At the time though, there were people that didn't want the jail to be opened again, since it was in a lower income side of the city, and it may have caused crime to get worse. On the other hand, those that advocated for the jail to be opened again, argued that it would save the county 300 million dollars in construction costs, on top of there being at least 1000 detainees waiting to be housed somewhere at the time. I do not believe SBI housed any inmates though, once this renovation happened. 

In 2019, the area was made unavailable for filming. According the the website 'places earth', the jail is awaiting demolition and rebuilding. 

[SOURCES]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_Brand_Institute

https://clui.org/ludb/site/sybil-brand-institute

https://rs.locationshub.com/location_detail.aspx?id=050-6775&photopage=2

https://locoscout.com/location_detail.php?location_id=196

https://www.placesearth.com/usa/california/los_angeles/sybil_brand_inst/sybil_brand0.shtml

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ca-court-of-appeal/1839980.html

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-oct-16-me-sybil16-story.html