Pressure Mounts on DC Mayor to Improve Prison Conditions in Wake of US Marshals Inspection
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WASHINGTON (Sputnik) Barrington M. Salmon - Mayor Muriel Bowser and other city officials in the US Capital are facing mounting pressure - from council members to the country’s top legal rights group - to address abhorrent jail conditions recently exposed by federal inspectors.
On Tuesday, the US Marshals Service said an unannounced inspection of DC Department of Corrections facilities revealed conditions that failed to meet minimum standards of confinement. All of the facility's roughly 400 inmates are being sent to the US Penitentiary Lewisburg in Pennsylvania, officials said.
Meanwhile, DC council member and judiciary panel chair Charles Allen said he would hold an oversight hearing on the findings this week and vowed to speak with Bowser and Corrections Director Quincy Booth about the situation.
"It’s a matter of the public putting pressure on the Mayor [Bowser] and Quincy Booth to bring about change and an improvement of the conditions," American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of DC Senior Communications Adviser, Suzanne Ito, told Sputnik.
The ACLU, the nation’s largest and oldest civil liberties organization, filed a lawsuit against the DC Department of Corrections over the prison conditions last March.
"In the height of COVID, there were no cleaning materials, sick people were left unattended and they were not following CDC guidelines," Ito said. "Litigation really helps. Things got better."
The eight-member team of deputy US Marshals that conducted the surprise inspection last week saw and documented toilets clogged with sewage, unclean conditions, corrections staff punishing detainees by denying them food and water, and other mistreatment of inmates.
"None of this is new. The Public Defender Service has been complaining for years," Ito said. "All of this is depressing and very horrible. A lot of people have been affected by this and we have to continue to challenge them."
Moreover, Ito added, there are still 1,000 people living at this facility where the brutal conditions were witnessed.
Former police officer Ronald Hampton - who chaired a DC body that conducted jail visits under Mayor Adrian Fenty (2007-2011) - said prison conditions were deplorable and substandard then just as they are now.
Hampton, a member of the DC Reform Commission, believes public exposure and constant pressure on politicians and elected officials and lawsuits are the best ways to try to effect change.
"They have got to continue to bring things like that to light which means city officials will really have to address this issue and get something done," Hampton told Sputnik.
However, Hampton said despite it being an election year, he is still not sure it will be enough for Bowser and city officials to act. Then again, if they fail to take action there will be consequences, he added.
"If nothing changes, there will be more lawsuits," Hampton warned.
Double Standards
The unannounced inspection took place during the week of October 18 after a federal judge leveled a contempt of court charge against Jail Warden Wanda Patten and Booth over the alleged mistreatment of a member of a right-wing fascist group who was being held in a DC jail for alleged involvement in the January 6 Capitol riot.
The judge referred the matter to the US Justice Department to investigate whether the jail had been violating the civil rights of others charged in the attack.
Ito and Hampton were both outraged that it took complaints of white detainees to trigger the investigation.
"It is really sickening that it took white January 6 protesters to complain and a judge took notice," she said. "82% of those in there are Black. It speaks to the carceral disparities and systemic racism at play."
Hampton, a DC representative of Blacks in Law Enforcement of America, also made an observation on the phenomenon.
"I hope people realize that when ‘good white folks’ recognize and complain about something, people act," Hampton said wryly.
