US Justice Department finds rights violated at Atlanta jail

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, where a mentally ill man infested with lice died in 2022 from neglect, systematically violates the constitutional rights of the people it incarcerates, the U.S. Justice Department said on Thursday.

In a report, the department said a civil-rights investigation it launched in July 2023 has uncovered widespread problems, from failing to protect inmates from violence and using unjustified force, to failing to provide proper medical care and living conditions.

“Despite widespread awareness of these issues, the unconstitutional and illegal conditions have persisted. Vulnerable populations – including children, those who are gay or transgender, people with medical and mental-health needs, and others – often bear the brunt of these conditions,” the report said.

In a press conference, Sheriff Patrick Labat and Fulton County Chairman Robb Pitts said the county has been working on reforms to the jail.

“We share the concerns that were outlined,” Pitts said.

“I’ve said all along that we will comply with whatever the Justice Department recommends and that’s what we’re in the process of doing now.”

The Justice Department under the Biden administration has launched a number of civil-rights probes, known as pattern or practice investigations, into jails across the United States.

The Fulton County Jail garnered headlines in September 2022, after LaShawn Thompson was discovered dead inside an insect-infested cell. The Justice Department said its investigation found there were other deaths that never made the news.

After Thompson’s death, three high-ranking members of the local sheriff’s office resigned and county officials pledged to remedy some of the jail’s problems, its report said.

Nevertheless, incarcerated people have continued to die inside the facility.

“In less than 24 hours in August 2023, at least seven people were stabbed and one was killed at the Jail. The violence spanned five units and three floors,” the Justice Department’s report said.

The report concluded that Fulton County violates the rights of its incarcerated population with “deliberate indifference” to the risks of harms.

“We cannot turn a blind eye to the inhumane, violent and hazardous conditions that people are subjected to inside the Fulton County Jail,” said Kristen Clarke, the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. 

“Detention in the Fulton County Jail has amounted to a death sentence for dozens of people who have been murdered or who died as a result of the atrocious conditions inside the facility.” 

Georgia Senate Democrat Jon Ossoff, who has been leading a number of congressional investigations into poor conditions inside U.S. jails, called the abuse inside the Fulton County Jail “horrific.”

“Each day these conditions persist is a failure to uphold Georgians’ human and Constitutional rights,” he said in a statement.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch;Editing by Alistair Bell and Rod Nickel)