A federal investigation has found that Atlanta’s Fulton County Jail is violating the civil rights of people in their custody by failing to protect them from violence, using excessive force, and holding them in filthy and unsafe conditions.
The Justice Department released a 105-page report Thursday, which includes several reforms needed to fix the situation but no immediate legal action for those responsible for the jail’s conditions.
Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general for the department’s Civil Rights Division, said at a news conference that the investigation was launched in July 2023, nearly a year after at least four Black men died in the Rice Street jail’s mental health unit, including two who were killed by their cellmates.
One of those men with serious mental health needs was Lashawn Thompson, whose body was found in September 2022 in a bedbug-infested cell that was filthy and full of garbage. An independent autopsy conducted at his family’s request found the 35-year-old died of severe neglect.
Nearly all of the people who are held in the jail have been accused, not convicted, of crimes. It includes 17-year-old boys and girls, who are also subjected to physical and sexual violence and dangerous and unsanitary conditions.
More than 90% of the jail’s population is also Black, making the problems at the facility a “racial justice issue,” Clarke said.
“We cannot turn a blind eye to the inhumane, violent and hazardous conditions that people are subjected to inside the Fulton County Jail,” Clarke said. “Detention in the Fulton County Jail has amounted to a death sentence for dozens of people who have been murdered or who’ve died as a result of the atrocious conditions inside the facility.”
The report states that from 2022 to the present, six inmates have died due to violence at the jail. In 2023, more than 300 stabbings occurred in the jail involving contraband and makeshift weapons. Four deaths from suicide happened at the jail in the past four years, including as recently as April of this year.
Investigators also found that there isn’t enough food for inmates, and that jail staff impede inmates’ access to medical and mental health care and punish people with long stints in isolation, which discriminates against those with mental health disabilities.
Ryan Buchanan, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, said jail staff also use Tasers too frequently and in “an unreasonable, unsafe manner,” and staff who use excessive force are not consistently disciplined. He said the excessive force is “not confined to a few bad actors” either.
“The most obvious casualties of the civil rights violations occurring in the jail are those who leave the jail in body bags,” Buchanan said. “But our investigation has revealed hundreds more injured, traumatized and dehumanized people, all of whom are just as deserving of the protections of the Constitution as all of us in this room.”
In 2023, then-former President Donald Trump was arrested, booked and quickly released from the facility after taking a viral mug shot for felony charges. It’s also where rapper Young Thug and his co-defendants were held through their high-profile gang and racketeering trial.
Included in the report are 11 pages of “minimum remedial measures” that jail officials should implement. It ends with a warning that federal authorities could take legal action if concerns are not sufficiently addressed, though there is no specific time frame for the changes.
Fulton County commissioners and Sheriff Patrick Labat, who recently won his reelection bid, did not respond to WABE’s request for comment. However, at a news conference Thursday afternoon, Labat stressed the problems the Justice Department found can be solved.
“These are fixable opportunities,” Labat said. “And so that’s what our plan is as we get ready to move forward, is to be able to fix each one of these opportunities and move forward.”
Labat, who took office in 2021, said ultimately what needs to change is how people are moved through the court system, as the jail exists to house people during that period. He has previously pushed for a replacement jail with at least a $1.7 billion price tag.
In response to the scathing report, Georgia U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff said he had been urging the Justice Department to investigate the jail’s conditions for some time. Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia said the report supports what they already knew.
“There are better alternatives to detaining people for non-violent offenses,” ACLU of Georgia Executive Director Andrea Young said. “We hope this report, calling out the unconstitutional conditions at Fulton County Jail, will finally push officials to use practical solutions such as speedy bond hearings, setting feasible bond amounts and releasing people held for misdemeanor charges.”
