ATLANTA — A Georgia Senate subcommittee's inquiry into conditions and "challenges" at the Fulton County Jail began on Thursday as the subcommittee meets for the first time.
The political spotlight comes on the jail following a string of high-profile issues, including numerous deaths in the last months, reports on the deteriorating conditions inside the facility prompting a U.S. Department of Justice investigation and Sheriff Pat Labat's attempts to clear overcrowding by transferring inmates elsewhere.
The revelation in April of the death several months earlier of 35-year-old Lashawn Thompson, whose family said he was neglected in the psychiatric wing of the jail and died covered in sores and eaten alive by bed bugs - preceded six more deaths from July onward of people either at the jail or who'd been housed there.
The DOJ announced an investigation in July, and the Georgia Senate Committee on Public Safety announced in early October it was moving ahead with its own inquiry. The meeting will be led by the subcommittee's vice chairman, Sen. Randy Robertson.
Plans to alleviate overcrowding put forth by Sheriff Labat, meanwhile, have resulted in contentious political and legal episodes. The sheriff and members of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners sparred at a meeting in September, and a judge this week issued a ruling making it clear any plan to transfer detainees to out-of-state jails is barred by state law.
Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat has acknowledged the jail walls are crumbling. In recent months, Labat has campaigned to build a new jail, which could cost $1.7 billion or more.
The jail was holding 2,077 detainees as of Oct. 29. That came after a reduction to successfully move inmates from the jail to other facilities in Cobb, Forsyth and Oconee counties. The sheriff has said that some inmates were also moved to Alpharetta’s and South Fulton’s jails.
Inmates without cells have slept in plastic bunks on the floor in common areas during the worst of the overcrowding. At its most crowded, Labat said 560 inmates occupied floor space. In recent weeks a dramatic drop has brought that number to 51 inmates on the floor space as of Oct. 29.