U.S. jails found rife with violence, abuse, overcrowding

People walk on Times Square in New York, the United States, March 28, 2022. (Photo by Michael Nagle/Xinhua)

The twin issues of overcrowding and understaffing have plagued jails across the country for years, and even before the pandemic many facilities were in disarray, said the report.

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- America's jails are a mess, challenged with overcrowding and lack of guards and filled with violence and abuse, the Voice of America has reported.

More than a dozen employees, detainees and experts highlighted two problems they've seen at jails across the country: too many people incarcerated, and not enough guards, said the report.

"It's hard to believe, but it seems jails are even more wretched than usual these last few months," the report cited David Fathi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Prison Project as saying. "Having worked in this field for 30 years, I don't remember any other time when there seem to be so many large jails in a state of complete meltdown."

The twin issues of overcrowding and understaffing have plagued jails across the country for years, and even before the pandemic many facilities were in disarray, said the report.

"Everyone is on edge because it is crowded," one man detained in Los Angeles wrote in a sworn declaration filed as part of a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union. "The place smells of urine and excrement because some toilets don't work, and people who are chained to chairs sometimes pee on the floor because the deputies won't unchain them."

Having fewer jail employees not only forces those who remain to work longer, it can also make life worse for detainees because there are fewer workers to let them out of their cells, take them to court, teach their educational programs or tend to their most basic needs, said the report.

According to Andrea Armstrong, a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans who studies deaths in jails and prisons, staffing problems are particularly dangerous when it comes to medical care.

"We are seeing increased mortality in jails, and they are the types of deaths that could have been avoided if the person had better access to emergency care," she said.