Report shows conditions of state’s largest local jail, noting prisoners tunnel through walls and violence is unchecked
Conditions in the Fulton county jail in Atlanta “violate the constitutional and statutory rights of people incarcerated”, a long-running federal investigation concluded today.
“Killings, stabbings, and assaults are common in the Jail,” according to a Department of Justice report released today. Contraband is pervasive, lethal violence goes uninvestigated – and is sometimes directly abetted by jail staff – and drug use is common, according to investigators in a 91-page report released today.
Federal investigators began examining jail conditions after a sharp increase in the number of prisoners who died in custody there during the pandemic. The gruesome death of Lashawn Thompson in September 2022 made national headlines. Jailers found Thompson, who suffered from serious mental illness, covered in insects in his own waste with his face down on the cell toilet. A coroner described Thompson as “neglected to death”.
Thompson was one of dozens of people in prison who have either been murdered, committed suicide or died in the jail in recent years. The report notes that even discounting deaths from homicide and suicide, the mortality rate inside the jail has been several times higher than the national average.
More than 1,000 assaults occurred in the jail in 2023, including 314 stabbings, according to the report.
