Feds find severe, deadly civil rights violations at Atlanta jail

ATLANTA (CN) — The U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday that their investigation into the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta revealed disturbing and inhumane conditions, resulting in much higher rates of violence than seen nationally.

Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general for civil rights, said the investigation found “long-standing, unconstitutional, unlawful and dangerous conditions” that jeopardize the lives of people held inside the jail.

She noted a majority of the jail’s detainees are people who have not been convicted of a crime and are awaiting court dates or are serving short sentences for misdemeanors.

“At the end of the day, people do not abandon their civil and constitutional rights at the jailhouse door,” Clarke said during a press conference. “Jails and prisons across the country must protect people from the kind of gross violations and unconstitutional conditions that we have uncovered here.”

In 2023 alone, the Justice Department identified 314 stabbings and more than 1,000 assaults inside the jail, which currently houses around 2,000 people.

That rate was 1.5 times the rate of stabbings in New York City jails and more than 27 times the rate of all incidents involving an edged weapon in Miami-Dade County jails. In the first nine months of 2023, there were over 200 emergency transports of incarcerated people to an outside hospital for injuries from assaults.

U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia Ryan Buchanan said that 17 non-homicide deaths occurred in the jail between 2022 and 2023, which is double the national average.

Buchanan added that the true death toll of detainees is likely underreported due to people who were transported to a hospital and died outside of the jail. He said there is also little effort by jail staff to determine the root causes of these deaths and that hours or even days had passed before several victims of assault were discovered.

Too few guards and poor maintenance of basic fixtures allow violence to go unchecked, Buchanan said.

He said the jail also lacks a classification and housing plan, which allows extremely violent individuals and gang members to be housed with vulnerable and low-risk individuals who are most subject to violence, including people with mental illness and 17-year-olds.

The 97-page report further found that solidarity confinement is used as punishment and in discriminatory ways against those same most vulnerable individuals.

It showed that jail officials further failed to protect 17-year-olds, who have an average stay of 392 days at the jail, from rampant violence and sexual abuse.

“Mental health treatment options and suicide prevention practices are grossly inadequate,” Buchanan said.

He added that the jail does not provide enough food, leaving people severely malnourished.

The lack of staffing and security measures has resulted in jail staff resorting to increased uses of excessive force, with a “particularly disturbing” use of Tasers, Buchanan said.

In the report, the department sets forth remedial measures that Fulton County officials should put in place such as improving the hazardous physical conditions of the jail and unsanitary living conditions from flooding and pests, and more security and medical staff.

It also says that if local officials do not address the concerns in 49 days the federal government could sue to force changes.

“We expect Fulton County and the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office to share our sense of urgency about the seriousness of the violations described in this report and to work cooperatively with our office and the Department of Justice to remedy these systemic deficiencies in the jail,” Buchanan said.

The Justice Department launched its civil rights investigation in July 2023 after the shocking death of Lashawn Thompson, who was found “neglected to death” inside a cell covered with thousands of bug bites.

Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat, who was reelected this past week, has urged the county to build an entirely new jail that would cost an estimated $1.7 billion. But he faced pushback from county commissioners, who recently opted to instead approve $300 million in renovations to the current facility.

Last month, the feds revealed findings from a separate investigation into Georgia’s prison system that found critical understaffing and enablement of gangs subjects its inmates to unconstitutional conditions including physical and sexual violence.

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