“This jail should be torn down, and the citizens of Fulton County will have to dig deeper into their pockets and pay the tax dollars needed to build a new one,” Attorney Roderick Edmond said. BBC.
Edmond talks about the Fulton County Jail outside of Atlanta. Former President Donald Trump has announced that at 7 pm local time (01 am Norwegian time) he will report there to allow himself to be arrested in the election fraud case in Georgia.
Mugshot
Trump, along with 18 others, is indicted for trying to undermine the presidential election in 2020 through manipulation of the results in the southern state, an accusation he snorts.
HOW INMATES LIVED: This is how Lashawn Thompson (35), who was found dead in his cell, lived completely covered in bed bug bites. Photo: Harper Law Firm Show more
Equally, he must appear in prison in line with criminal law practice.
According to the local sheriff, Pat Labat, the prison staff will follow “normal procedure” when the 77-year-old ex-president – and aspiring presidential candidate – appears at the gate.
This regular routine includes giving fingerprints, and also apparently being photographed – which results in a so-called mugshot. This will be the first time such a charge has been taken against Trump, although he has been charged in four different cases.
Congestion
However, the Fulton County Jail is not just any jail. It has recently received considerable negative attention for being a particularly bad institution on a national basis – and that in a country with a number of notorious prisons.
– A raw show of power
Basically, a jail in the US is typically reserved for people awaiting trial, while a prison is where convicted criminals serve longer sentences.
But according to one rapport fra American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) as of September of last year, it is piling up sharply in Fulton, and several hundred people were held in jail for more than 90 days because formal charges were not filed or they could not pay bail.
In addition, 117 people had been waiting in prison for over a year due to a lack of charges. 12 of these had been waiting for over two years.
MOCKED: Trump and his co-defendants are mocked outside the Fulton County Jail. Photo: Mike Stewart / AP / NTB Show more
The prison was built in 1985 to house 1,300 inmates. In recent years, just over 3,000 have stayed there.
– It has been overpopulated since it was built, says ACLU head Fallon McClure to the BBC.
– Set pattern
Inmates are dying in alarming numbers at the Fulton County Jail. So far this year, the number is six.
– There has been a consistent and disturbing pattern of poor health care and inmates dying in prison under mysterious circumstances, says lawyer Edmond.
A national scandal was triggered after Lashawn Thompson (35) was found dead in his cell in the prison’s department for psychiatric inmates last September. The cell was soiled with faeces, and the body was covered in bed bug bites.
ACCUSED: Hillary Clinton reacts to the indictment against Trump in a recent interview with MSNBC. Video: MSNBC and AP. Reporter: Magnus Paus / Dagbladet TV Show more
The family was awarded $4 million in restitution this month. An independent autopsy report concluded the death was caused by “gross negligence” by Fulton County Jail staff, and the federal Department of Justice has opened an investigation.
Can’t get a cause of death
19-year-old Noni Battiste-Kosoko was arrested for a less serious crime in July of this year, but died in her cell in a building Fulton County Jail has leased to get more space.
Battiste-Kosoko’s family has not been given a cause of death, nor have they been given access to any autopsy report.
No-fly zone when Trump surrenders
This month, a 34-year-old man who had been in Fulton since 2019 was found unconscious in his cell. He died in hospital.
According to a report from Southern Center for Human Rights is the prison “dangerously understaffed and overcrowded”.
“The cramped, unhygienic living conditions are dangerous on many levels, and facilitate the spread of viruses such as covid-19, or parasite outbreaks,” states the report, which adds that there have recently been outbreaks of lice as well as scabies.
WAITING FOR TRUMP: Tight security at the entrance gate of the Fulton County Jail on Thursday. Photo: Christian Monterrosa / AFP / NTB Show more
Admission
The Fulton County Sheriff’s Office runs the jail, and the agency admits conditions are deplorable. They are asking for a new complex to be built at a cost of $1.7 billion.
Fallon McClure of the ACLU points to a number of reasons for the overpopulation – including that the threshold for putting people in prison for minor crimes is lower than in other parts of Georgia. In addition, the corona pandemic has created a queue in the system.
Ex-president Trump is unlikely to be exposed to the scandal prison’s undignified and health-damaging conditions. Because he has negotiated in advance bail of 200,000 dollars, he can probably walk out of the complex again after a few hours, without ever having seen the inside of a cell.
2023-08-24 21:09:39
#Trump #worst #prison #demolished
