Retired Assistant Sheriff Brendan Corbett is jumping into the race to lead the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department with a law-and-order pitch that also leans hard on rehabilitation. He says he wants to cut repeat offending by tying custody reforms to stronger re-entry services, a theme he has been working into stump speeches across the country.
In an interview that aired Monday, Corbett outlined plans to overhaul how people are released from custody and to expand programs that treat substance use and mental illness instead of relying on long jail stays. As reported by FOX 11 Los Angeles, he cast the strategy as both a public-safety priority and a way to save taxpayer dollars.
Policy priorities: patrol, reserves, and custody release
Corbett’s campaign platform calls for shifting more department resources back to patrol, rebuilding the Reserve program to roughly 1,000 volunteers within a year, and launching a coordinated custody-release plan that brings together the District Attorney, the courts and county services in an effort to cut homelessness and recidivism. He is also pushing expedited hiring for professional staff and new technology he says would speed up response times. According to Corbett for Sheriff, those moves are meant to deliver quick relief on the streets while directing people toward treatment and services when that is the better fit.
A crowded field and a fast timeline
Corbett is diving into a crowded contest that already features incumbent Sheriff Robert Luna, former Sheriff Alex Villanueva and several current and former LASD officers. Per the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, he is listed among the candidates in the June 2 primary, where any contender who clears 50 percent of the vote wins the job outright. That tight timeline leaves challengers with limited runway to build name recognition in a massive county.
Legal and political backdrop
Corbett’s run comes as the sheriff’s department faces intense scrutiny over expensive legal settlements and oversight questions. Hoodline reported that Los Angeles County spent roughly $112 million in a recent fiscal year defending the sheriff’s department, a figure critics cite as fuel for demands for accountability and reform.
A nearly four-decade veteran of LASD, Corbett previously served as assistant sheriff over custody operations, experience he argues gives him the operational chops to take the top job. The Los Angeles Times has framed the 2026 sheriff’s race as a broader referendum on whether voters want continuity, a stronger reform push or a return to more combative leadership styles…