The Crisis of Conditions in US Jails & Prisons - FAMM Foundation

Recent deaths of persons incarcerated in jails and prisons across the United States are receiving national attention, if not for the depravity of these facility conditions but for the frequency with which they are occurring.

In the Jackson County jail south of Indianapolis, a schizophrenic man named Joshua McLemore starved to death after being locked in a padded cell and left untended for 20 days. In the Fulton County jail in Georgia, 35-year-old Lashawn Thompson was allegedly eaten alive by bugs in his filthy jail cell while awaiting trial for a misdemeanor simple battery charge. The sheriff of the Noxubee County jail in Mississippi has been indicted and is being further investigated for running a jail where he allegedly beat his own staff, allowed systematic rape of women in custody, and then tried to cover it all up.

America’s jails look and sound increasingly like dungeons from the Middle Ages and less like 21st-century facilities where people are rehabilitated and treated with dignity. Our prisons aren’t faring much better. In red and blue states alike, prison systems are overcrowded, chronically understaffed, provide “plainly grossly inadequate” health care, and are rife with sexual assault and high rates of suicide.

Those are just the stories we've been informed about, as jails and prisons are famously, and some would say designed to be, opaque when it comes to public reporting and accountability for what goes on inside the walls. These publicized recent incidents show, with often tragic consequences and heartbroken families and loved ones left behind, prisons and jails cannot be trusted to police themselves.

Establishing independent oversight is essential to reforming our nation’s prisons and jails. Independent prison and jail oversight like the kind operating in Washington State, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Illinois, and Texas includes regular, unannounced inspections of facilities. This prevents prison officials from hiding problems before inspectors arrive.

Independent prison oversight would improve prison conditions by allowing for:

• Unannounced prison inspections by objective, professional oversight staff;
• Public reports and recommendations for improving prison conditions;
• A confidential place for families, staff, and incarcerated people to bring complaints;
• Resolution of reoccurring prison complaints;
• More transparency and accountability to taxpayers, incarcerated people, and their families.

You can contact your lawmakers today and send them a message that you support legislation to create policy that supports independent prison oversight. Fill out this action form, available at the website for FAMM - Families Against Mandatory Minimums - to let lawmakers know you're paying attention, that they need to know what's happening in our prisons, and to do their part to ensure prison officials are held accountable for making improvements when needed.