A Georgia Senate committee says more cooperation among county officials would improve conditions in Fulton County’s jail, but it also called on the city of Atlanta to hand over all of its former jail to the county to house prisoners.
The committee was formed last year to examine conditions in the jail after an already overcrowded population soared and a string of inmate deaths drew an unwanted spotlight. The U.S. Department of Justice opened a civil rights investigation last year over longstanding problems.
The Justice Department cited violence, filthy conditions and the September 2022 death of Lashawn Thompson, one of dozens of people who has died in county custody during the past few years. Thompson, 35, died in a bedbug-infested cell in the jail’s psychiatric wing.
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