A new report on the D.C. Jail paints a bleak picture of a dangerous, crumbling infrastructure where overdose deaths are 10 times the U.S. average — where narcan is used on a regular basis to revive inmates and use of force by staff is common.
The conditions at the jail are so concerning, the D.C. Auditor said the city is in urgent need of a new one.
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WATCH HEREA little over five years ago, the D.C. auditor issued a report that called the D.C. Jail an aging and dangerous infrastructure that needed to be replaced as soon as possible.
A new report issued this week said the exact same thing, but details the dire need for a new facility with some eye opening numbers.
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SIGN UP The report said deaths at the D.C. Jail are three times the national average.
“These numbers mean something, and it just shows you the population,” said D.C. Auditor Kathy Patterson. “There is a serious drug issue, there are serious behavioral health issues, and one of the things we are concluding is we desperately need a new jail.”
Patterson said some of the problems at the jail are facility-related in terms of keeping eyes on prisoners.
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“One of the deaths in the jail that was related to moving prisoners without enough staff to move them, a lot of things going on here,” she said.
Patterson said the infrastructure is in such poor shape, inmates have used some of its crumbling pieces for weapons.
“There were incidents where the building itself provided the weapons — chipping off part of a window ledge, a chipping off part of a wall or something where you got a building literally crumbling such that somebody could make a shank from the building itself,” she said.
The D.C. Auditor said the city needs not only a new facility, but much better oversight into what's going on in the jail along with better staffing and less overtime.
During the budget presentation Tuesday, Patterson said she was pleased to hear D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and City Administrator Kevin Donahue acknowledge how desperately the city needs to move on the building of a new jail, getting it done perhaps with a public/private partnership.
“The city administrator said yesterday there have been not one but two inquiries coming into the administration of entities partnering to build a new jail,” Patterson said.
Under that plan, the District government would not have the burden of financing a new jail but would instead lease it back from the builder.
