Fulton County Jail – Trump’s Worst Jail:

– This prison must be demolished and the citizens of Fulton County will have to dig deeper into their pockets and pay the taxes needed to build a new prison, says Attorney Roderick Edmund. BBC.

Edmund talks about the Fulton County Jail outside of Atlanta. Former President Donald Trump announced that at 7pm local time (01am Norwegian time) he would be there to allow his arrest in the Georgia election fraud case.

mug shot

Trump, along with 18 others, has been accused of trying to undermine the 2020 presidential election by manipulating the results in the southern state, an accusation he complains about.

Likewise, he must appear in prison in line with criminal law practice.

According to local police chief Pat Lapat, prison staff will follow “normal procedures” when the 77-year-old former chief – and aspiring presidential candidate – shows up at the gate.

This usual routine involves giving fingerprints, as well as apparently being photographed – leading to the so-called mugshot. It will be the first time such a charge has been brought against Trump, although he has been charged in four different cases.

Crowding

However, the Fulton County Jail is not just a prison. It has recently received a great deal of negative attention as a very bad institution on a national level – in a country with a number of notorious prisons.

– Raw display of strength

Basically a prison In the United States it is usually reserved for people awaiting trial, while et al prison It is where convicted criminals serve longer sentences.

But according to nobody American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) report As of September last year, these offenses had accumulated in Fulton, and several hundred people had been held in jail for more than 90 days because no formal charges were filed or because they were unable to post bail.

In addition, 117 people have been waiting in prison for more than a year because they have not been charged. And 12 of them had been waiting for more than two years.

The prison was built in 1985 to accommodate 1,300 inmates. In recent years, just over 3,000 people have resided there.

– It has been very densely populated since its construction, ACLU president Fallon McClure tells the BBC.

– Set the style

Prisoners are dying in alarming numbers at the Fulton County Jail. And so far this year, the number is six.

– Advocate Edmund says: – There has been a consistent and alarming pattern of poor health care and deaths of prisoners in prison under mysterious circumstances.

It sparked a national scandal after LaShawn Thompson, 35, was found dead in his cell in the prison’s psychiatric section last September. The cell was contaminated with feces, and the corpse was covered in bed bug bites.

The family received $4 million in compensation this month. An independent autopsy report concluded that the death was caused by “gross negligence” by Fulton County Jail staff, and the federal Department of Justice has opened an investigation.

The cause of death could not be obtained

19-year-old Noni Baptiste Kosoko was arrested for a less serious crime in July of this year, but died in her cell in a building that the Fulton County Jail rented for more space.

The family of Baptiste Kosoko was not informed of the cause of death, nor were they allowed to see 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 the hospital.

According to a report from Southern Center for Human Rights The prison is “seriously understaffed and overcrowded”.

“The cramped and unsanitary living conditions are dangerous on many levels, facilitating the spread of viruses such as COVID-19, or the spread of parasites,” the report said, adding that there had been recent outbreaks of lice and scabies.

Acceptance

The Fulton County Sheriff’s Office runs the prison, and the agency acknowledges that conditions are deplorable. They are calling for the construction of a new complex at a cost of $1.7 billion.

Fallon McClure of the American Civil Liberties Union points to a number of reasons for the overcrowding — including that the threshold for putting people in jail for minor offenses is lower than in other parts of Georgia. In addition, the Corona pandemic has created a waiting list in the system.

Former President Trump is unlikely to be subjected to degrading and health-damaging prison conditions in prison. And because he negotiated a bail of $200,000 in advance, he will likely be able to walk out of the compound again a few hours later, without seeing the inside of the cell.