ATLANTA – Jail officials in Georgia's most populous county are violating the constitutional rights of people in their custody by failing to protect them from violence, using excessive force and holding them in filthy and unsafe conditions, U.S. Justice Department officials said Thursday.
They detailed “unconstitutional and illegal conditions” in Fulton County lockups in a lengthy report and suggested remedial actions. County officials said they have already started making changes to improve conditions for those in custody and that they look forward to working with the Justice Department to continue that work.
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“Our investigation finds longstanding, unconstitutional, unlawful and dangerous conditions that jeopardize the lives and well-being of the people held there,” Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general for civil rights, said at a news conference in Atlanta.
The report resulted from a federal investigation launched in July 2023 to examine living conditions, access to medical and mental health care, use of excessive force by staff, and conditions that may give rise to violence between people held in jails in the county, which includes most of Atlanta.
Federal authorities cited the September 2022 death of 35-year-old Lashawn Thompson in a bedbug-infested cell in the Fulton County Jail’s psychiatric wing, noting that an independent autopsy conducted at his family’s request found that he died of severe neglect. Photos released by attorneys for Thompson’s family showed that his body was covered in insects and that his cell was filthy and full of garbage.
“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.”
Assaults and stabbings with “shanks” are “a feature of life" at the jail, the report states, noting that there were 1,054 assaults and 314 stabbings in 2023. In some cases, officers have allowed or initiated the violence, and many attacks go unreported or are not properly documented.
Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat, who took office in 2021 and was reelected last week, has consistently raised concerns about overcrowding, dilapidated infrastructure and staffing shortages at county facilities. He has pushed county leaders to build a new jail, which they have so far been unwilling to do, but he said he appreciates the Board of Commissioners approving up to $300 million to make improvements to the current jail.
Although county leaders and the sheriff's office are aware of the violence and have publicly spoken out against it, “they have failed to take adequate action to address the crisis," according to the report.
Labat and Board of Commissioners Chairman Robb Pitts said they have already been working together in recent months to address both structural and programming concerns.
“I think today is a time of us looking forward and not backwards,” Pitts said. “How do we accomplish some of the things that have been pointed out in the study.”
Clarke said the Justice Department is ready to work with the county.
“I'm hopeful at the end of the day that Fulton County can put in place the reforms, measures and best practices necessary so that it might stand as a model for other institutions across the country,” she said.
Ryan Buchanan, the U.S. attorney in Atlanta, said the problems affect a large percentage of the jail population. An overwhelming majority of those in custody are in pretrial detention and have not been convicted of a crime.
“The most obvious casualties of the civil rights violations occurring in the jail are those who leave the jail in body bags,” he 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.”
The “crisis of violence” — including stabbings, sexual assaults and killings — in the Fulton County Jail is due in part to a lack of an effective classification system, resulting in a extremely violent people and gang members being housed with vulnerable and low-risk people, he said.
Vulnerable populations, including people who are gay, transgender, young or who have serious mental illness, are particularly at risk from the violence, which causes physical injury and long-lasting trauma, the report says.
Jail officers “have a pattern or practice of using excessive force” against people in county custody, the report says. Officers do not receive adequate training and guidance on the use of force, they use Tasers too frequently and in “an unreasonable, unsafe manner,” and staff who use excessive force are not consistently disciplined, it states.
Fulton County has a main jail and three annexes, and investigators found that the main jail is hazardous and unsanitary, citing flooding from broken toilets and sinks, infestations of cockroaches and rodents, and filthy cells with dangerous exposed wires. There isn't enough food for detainees and the distribution services are unsanitary, the report says. That leaves detainees exposed to pest infestation, malnourishment and other harms, investigators contend.
People held in Fulton County custody receive inadequate medical and mental health care in violation of their constitutional rights, leaving them open to risk of injury, serious illness, pain and suffering, mental health decline and death, the report states.
People with serious mental illness are routinely held in restrictive housing that exposes them to risk of serious harm, including self-injury, physical decline and acute mental illness, the report says.
The jurisdiction of the juvenile justice system in Georgia ends at age 16, so 17-year-olds are housed in county jails. They are held in restrictive housing with little time outside of their cells, leaving them susceptible to the onset of mental illness, depression and an increased risk of suicide, the report says.
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.
A Georgia state Senate committee formed last year to examine jail conditions in Fulton County concluded in August that county officials needed to do more to work together to address problems at the jail. It also called on the city of Atlanta to hand over all of its former jail to the county to house prisoners.