Two years after a mentally ill man died malnourished and covered in insects in Atlanta's Fulton County Jail, a Justice Department investigation has found that man's death was only one of a string of fatalities due to pervasive unconstitutional conditions at the jail.
The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division released a report Thursday concluding that the Fulton County Jail, which handles pre-trial detention for most of Atlanta, subjects incarcerated people to pest infestations and malnourishment, excessive force from correctional officers, and fails to protect them from rampant violence and sexual assaults from other inmates. The report found that these conditions violate the Eighth and 14th Amendments, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
The Justice Department launched the civil rights investigation in the wake of the 2022 death of Lashawn Thompson. Thompson, a 35-year-old man with schizophrenia, had been incarcerated at the Fulton County Jail for three months on a misdemeanor battery charge when he was found dead in an extremely filthy cell. Thompson's body was covered in lice, bedbugs, and lesions. An independent autopsy listed his cause of death as "severe neglect," noting Thompson was suffering from a "severe body insect infestation."
In a press statement, Attorney General Merrick Garland said Thompson's "horrific death was symptomatic of a pattern of dangerous and dehumanizing conditions in the Fulton County Jail."
"The Justice Department's report concluded that Fulton County and the Fulton County Sheriff's Office allowed unsafe and unsanitary conditions at the Jail," Garland said. "As a result, people incarcerated in the Fulton County Jail suffered harms from pest infestation and malnourishment and were put at substantial risk of serious harm from violence by other incarcerated people—including homicides, stabbings and sexual abuse."
Justice Department investigators reported widespread infestations of mice, roaches, bedbugs, lice, and scabies.
In addition to being unsanitary, the jail's kitchen also fails to adequately feed detainees. The report notes that jail medical staff determined in 2022 that 90 percent of the people in the mental health unit where Thompson died were "significantly malnourished with obvious muscle wasting."
Because Georgia is one of four states where the juvenile justice system ends at age 16, the Fulton County Jail routinely holds 17-year-olds and subjects them to the same conditions.
Minors and those with mental illness are held in solitary confinement for prolonged periods. Correctional officers use Tasers and pepper spray against mentally ill inmates and minors without justification.
The report also found that the prison inadequately investigated and reported sexual assault allegations, even though the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) is supposed to create zero-tolerance policies for rape in prisons and jails. Justice Department investigators wrote that this negligence extended to the jail's minor population:
Even a grievance about the sexual assault of a 17-year-old boy triggered no apparent action to address the violence. In June 2023, a 17-year-old submitted an emergency grievance reporting that he had been anally penetrated and was bleeding. The grievance officer responded that she had turned the grievance over to the Jail's investigations unit, provided no other information, and closed the grievance. Later that week, the same person filed another emergency grievance from the same housing location, reporting that he was being sexually harassed and made to perform sex acts, and requesting a move to another location. The grievance officer responded that she forwarded the grievance to the PREA investigator, again provided no other information, and closed the grievance. Despite a request, we received no incident reports or documents indicating that anyone investigated these complaints.
Sen. Jon Ossoff (D–Ga.), who urged the Justice Department to launch the investigation, said in a press statement that Thursday's report "confirms that abuse at the Fulton County Jail has been not just horrific, but also unconstitutional. Each day these conditions persist is a failure to uphold Georgians' human and Constitutional rights."
But those conditions persist in jails and prisons across the country, where negligence, apathy, and cruelty result in hundreds of deaths a year. In a Texas county jail, three people died of thirst over a two-year period.
The Justice Department report notes that so far in 2024 three men have died in the Fulton County Jail: one of a suspected drug overdose, one by stabbing, and one by suicide.
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