Two years after a mentally ill man died of malnutrition and covered in insects in Atlanta’s Fulton County jail, a Justice Department investigation found the man’s death was just one of numerous deaths due to the unconstitutional conditions pervasive in the prison.

The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice has issued a report Thursday, finding that the Fulton County Jail, which handles pretrial detention in most of Atlanta, subjects incarcerated people to parasite infestations and malnutrition, excessive force by correctional officers, and fails to protect them from widespread violence and sexual assault by other inmates. The report finds that these conditions violate the Eighth and 14th Amendments, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

The Department of Justice launched the civil rights investigation following the death of Lashawn Thompson in 2022. Thompson, a 35-year-old man with schizophrenia, had been incarcerated in the Fulton County Jail for three months on a misdemeanor battery charge when he was found dead in an extremely filthy cell . Thompson’s body was covered in lice, bedbugs and sores. An independent autopsy stated the cause of death as “gross negligence,” noting that Thompson suffered from a “severe infestation of bodily insects.”

In a press statementAttorney General Merrick Garland said Thompson’s “horrific death was symptomatic of a pattern of dangerous and dehumanizing conditions in the Fulton County Jail.”

“The Department of Justice report concluded that Fulton County and the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office permitted unsafe and unsanitary conditions in the jail,” Garland said. “As a result, people incarcerated in the Fulton County Jail suffered from parasite infestations and malnutrition and were at significant risk of serious harm from violence at the hands of other incarcerated people, including homicides, stabbings and sexual abuse.”

Justice Department investigators reported widespread infestations of mice, cockroaches, bedbugs, lice and scabies.

In addition to being unsanitary, the prison kitchen also fails to adequately feed the inmates. The report notes that prison medical staff determined in 2022 that 90% of people in the mental health unit where Thompson died were “significantly malnourished and had obvious muscle wasting.”

As Georgia is one of four states where the juvenile justice system ends at age 16, the Fulton County Jail regularly detains 17-year-olds and subjects them to the same conditions.

Minors and people with mental illness are held in solitary confinement for prolonged periods. Correctional officers use Tasers and pepper spray against mentally ill inmates and juveniles without justification.

The report also finds that the prison failed to adequately investigate and report sexual assault allegations, even though the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) is supposed to create a zero-tolerance policy for rape in jails and prisons. Justice Department investigators wrote that this neglect extended to the prison’s minor population:

Even a grievance about the sexual assault of a 17-year-old boy triggered no apparent action to address the violence. In June 2023, a 17-year-old filed an emergency grievance reporting that he had experienced anal penetration and was bleeding. The grievance officer responded that she forwarded the grievance to the prison’s investigations unit, provided no further information, and closed the grievance. Later that week, the same person filed another emergency complaint from the same place of residence, reporting that she had been sexually harassed and forced to perform sexual acts, and requesting to move to another location. The grievance officer responded that she forwarded the grievance to the PREA investigator, again provided no further information, and closed the grievance. Despite a request, we have not received any incident reports or documentation indicating that anyone has investigated these complaints.

Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), who has urged the Justice Department to launch an investigation, said in a news release that Thursday’s report “confirms that abuse at the Fulton County Jail was not only horrible, but also unconstitutional. If these conditions persist, it is a failure to respect the human and constitutional rights of Georgians.

But these conditions persist in prisons across the country, where neglect, apathy and cruelty lead to hundreds of deaths each year. In a Texas county jail, three people died of thirst over a period of two years.

The Justice Department report notes that so far in 2024, three men have died in the Fulton County jail: one from a suspected drug overdose, one from a stabbing and one from suicide.