A Georgia Senate panel is set to launch the second outside government investigation into the dangerous conditions of a Fulton County Jail that Sheriff Patrick Labat has labeled a humanitarian crisis.
Several Republican senators flanked Lt. Gov. Burt Jones on Thursday as he announced a Senate public safety subcommittee is set to hold its first meeting on Nov. 2 to discuss overcrowding in an Atlanta jail and the deaths of inmates at the complex. The Senate inquiry follows a U.S. Department of Justice civil rights investigation initiated in July into conditions at the Fulton jail.
As of this year, there have been 10 inmates who have died in custody at the west Atlanta Rice Street jail, which opened in 1989 and was designed for 1,600 inmates but currently has more than 2,900 people incarcerated.
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