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Fulton County Jail in ‘State of Crisis’
Doctor reports filthy
conditions, overcrowding
By Steven
H. Pollak
June 11, 2004
The Fulton County Jail is in a “state of crisis,” according to
a former court-appointed medical monitor who toured the
facility in May and found severe overcrowding, staff shortages
and squalid conditions ripe for transmission of diseases.
In a May 31 letter to the Fulton County attorney’s office, Dr.
Robert B. Greifinger said the jail has twice the number of
inmates it was built to hold, while the security staff
continues to dwindle because of a budget freeze.
Greifinger, who previously served as the court-appointed
monitor for the DeKalb County Jail, visited the Fulton
facility on May 26 and May 27 as part of a deal struck by
Fulton attorneys in November 2002. The goal was to end two
years of federal litigation focusing on medical care at the
jail. Foster v. Fulton County, No. 1:99CV900 (N.D. Ga. April
16, 2002).
His letter was addressed to Paula Morgan Nash, the senior
county attorney who handled that litigation for Fulton. She
didn’t return calls seeking comment for this story.
The Daily Report obtained the letter from the Southern Center
for Human Rights, which represented inmates in the 2002
litigation.
The lead plaintiffs’ attorney from the federal suit, Stephen
B. Bright of the Southern Center, said he is considering
renewed legal action against Fulton. “We’re interviewing
people at the jail and trying to find the extent of it to see
what options are available to improve things,” he said.
Bright said his organization had been watching “with concern”
as the number of inmates continued to creep up in the last
year and a half. “The jail has been over-tasked and the system
is breaking down,” Bright said.
Fulton Sheriff Jacquelyn H. Barrett said of the conditions at
the jail, “It continues to be my hope that the board of
commissioners will be able to provide the resources that we
need. In the meantime, the entirety of the
system … all of us are working to move people through
the system.”
Calls to Fulton County Commission Chairman Karen Handel were
not returned in time for this story.
As part of the 2002 agreement, Fulton contracted with
Greifinger to monitor conditions at the jail for 18 months
after U.S. District Judge Marvin H. Shoob dismissed the case.
In his letter, Greifinger described woeful conditions. “It was
dank, full of sweaty bodies,” he wrote of cells on the fifth
floor. “The air was thick with the scent of underwear. Rank.
Each zone the same. Wet laundry on
the railings. Raised voices. Noisy. Crowded. Inmates bussing
about, milling randomly, a few banging on the zone doors.
Mattresses on the floor in the day room. No duty officers in
sight,” he wrote.
He went on to say that the air-conditioning had been broken
“for days,” and water dripped from the ceiling into garbage
pails. One area housed 326 inmates but there were only 12
showers. Inanother “zone” where 59 inmates were
housed—18 of whom slept on the floor—there were only two
showers.
“Extremely tense. Each of my senses raising an alarm. Scary.
With almost two decades of visiting inmates’ housing units, it
was the first time that I declined to go in,” the doctor
wrote.
Many of the jail’s problems stem from overcrowding, Greifinger
wrote.
Two days before the doctor arrived at the facility, there were
3,299 inmates in custody, but the jail was built for half that
number, he wrote. “A full 500 inmates were housed in the
facility without cells, sleeping on the floors in the day
rooms,” the report said.
While the inmate population continues to grow, the number of
staff continues to shrink. Fulton’s hiring freeze prevents the
sheriff’s department from replacing employees who leave,
resulting in an increasing number of vacant positions,
Greifinger said. As of May 24, Greifinger said there were 94
unfilled positions for uniformed staff,
more than triple the usual number of vacancies.
Inmates Missing Medication
Health care workers can’t always get security escorts because
of staff shortages at the jail, and as a result, Greifinger
said, inmates often miss doctor appointments or don’t receive
medications. Inmates with chronic illnesses miss 15 percent to
20 percent of their doctor appointments, he said.
The lack of supervision has led to the serious injury and
possible death of inmates, Greifinger said. This spring, an
inmate sustained serious brain damage when he was assaulted in
the housing unit and there were not enough security officers
available to break up the altercation, Greifinger said.
Leaking Pipes, Power Outages
Greifinger also described woeful maintenance of the facility.
He said the maintenance staff can’t keep up with the 1,300
work orders they receive each month. Pipes leak throughout the
facility, toilets overflow and the HVAC controls do not work.
The maintenance staff spends 90 percent of its time on repairs
and only 10 percent on preventative work. The electrical
system is so strained that power regularly goes out in the
dental unit, according to Greifinger’s letter.
One area in severe need of repairs is the laundry. On the days
Greifinger visited the jail, all the dryers in the main jail
had been broken for a week. An annex next door had one
functioning dryer. “The inmates are washing their own
underwear, in their little sinks with hand soap, hanging them
to dry on the railings,” the doctor wrote. “This is
unsanitary.”
Despite the stressful conditions, Greifinger complimented the
jail’s staff. “Jail staff appears to be doing everything they
can with limited resources,” he said. Correctional Medical
Associates, the vendor for medical and mental health care, “is
functioning as well as it can, given the barriers described
above.” |
