DOJ demands changes at 'abhorrent' Atlanta jail

Fulton County Jail in Georgia — In 2022, inmate Lashawn Thompson was found dead and malnourished in a garbage-filled cell, sparking the investigation

(Image credit: Elijah Nouvelage for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

What happened

Georgia's Fulton County jails people in "abhorrent, unconstitutional" conditions, violating their civil rights, the Justice Department said Thursday in a highly critical report. The DOJ started investigating the county lockup in Atlanta in 2023, following the 2022 death there of Lashawn Thompson, a 35-year-old inmate found malnourished and covered in lice in a garbage-filled cell. A medical examiner ruled he had been "neglected to death."

The 16-month federal investigation found that ill-trained and understaffed Fulton County Jail guards had a "practice of using excessive force" against detainees for even small infractions, punished teenagers with solitary confinement and fueled a "crisis of violence" by housing extremely violent inmates alongside vulnerable and low-risk detainees. Assaults and stabbings with "shanks" are "a feature of life" at the jail, the report added, and the cells are infested with vermin, flooded by overflowing toilets and beset by hazardous exposed wires.

"None of these problems are new," the report said. "And despite widespread awareness of these issues, the unconstitutional and illegal conditions have persisted." Being held at the Fulton County Jail, even while awaiting trial, "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," said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, who oversees the civil rights division.