Justice Department to investigate jail conditions in Georgia’s most populous county – By Kim Brumback (Associated Press) / July 13, 2023
ATLANTA (AP) — The U.S. Department of Justice has opened a civil rights investigation into jail conditions in Georgia’s most populous county, with officials citing violence, filthy conditions and the death last year of a man whose body was found covered in insects.
Investigators will look at 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 Fulton County jails, Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said during a news conference Thursday. The county’s main jail is in Atlanta and has a long history of problems.
“Our investigation into these matters is guided by one core principle: People held in jails and prisons do not surrender their constitutional and civil rights at the jailhouse door,” Clarke said, noting that a vast majority of people in jails have not been convicted.
People held in Fulton County are “predominantly people of color,” she said, adding that data shows 87 percent of the jail population is Black.
