Inside Clayton County Jail Overcrowding and Broken Facilities

Officer Tawana Smith begins her rounds. Carrying out head count in unit seven. Officer in unit seven, this is to be advised head count in progress. Officer Smith. Come on. Hello fellow inmates. Who I got in here today? Corrections is always going to be stressful. It's never going to get to a point where it's just a cupcake campus. Come on boy. Get on over there. Come I don't think I have a partner today because we are short staffed. Hello. Hey Miss Smith. How you doing?

I'm good lady. I said all of you back up for me. Let me get Come here. I want to come here. Let me in. They look at over 200 inmates for about 10 to 12 hours a day. And that does not change. It does not change. No. Being a female officer in a correctional setting, I call that my superpower. Come back up here where you belong at. Exactly. How y'all doing? Oh, we need to clean up in here. Just stand right over there for me. Okay? Because when you look at me, I already don't appear to be a threat to you. Don't I give you free time every day?

Yes. Yes, you do. Yes. So, it makes it easier to talk to them. Yes, she here Miss Smith. Y'all right? Y'all the way right. We got Miss Smith in the building. She know she bad. They're normal people. They just like me and you. You may have a person that may come in here and they may have a DUI, but they may have a home, a wife, children, a good job. They just made a mistake that particular day and had uh just a little bit too much wine. You know, and now they're locked up. What is my honest opinion on her today? She a bad lady, man. Go over there and sit down.

I mean, I could get arrested. I could be driving and I have my driver's license on me and be arrested. And I've been at this for 25 years. Is it possible I can use the bathroom or toilet, mister? What's going on? It's leaking under the bed? Or like from that wall to this wall. wall? What's going on in here? Our toilet don't work. I know. I put in an email for it, so hopefully they'll be over here. 95% of our problems come from the broken facility, the toilets, the sinks, not able just to go and get a cup of water,

cold showers, showers missing doors. They're going to get frustrated with each other and they're going to fight. But it's not a matter of if, it's just a matter of when. But it's it's going to take place. Built over 25 years ago, the jail's capacity is 1,535. Pull your pants up. But today, it houses over 2,000 detainees across eight housing units. In housing unit seven, nearly 80% of the inmate population is awaiting trial. The court years is 2 years back there. And people just been sitting in here. My homeboy right here been 4 years locked up here and they keep canceling his court date cuz they don't got no transport.

We are overcrowded in here. People coming in and people not coming out. Can you give us a tour of the jail? Oh, yeah. I'll show y'all around. Come on. Inmate Milton Davies agrees to give a first-hand tour of daily life on the inside. This is the toilet that be right here. It floods everywhere. These do not work. These don't work either. These don't work. This right here, the drain pipe, it floods every 2 days. Feces on the floor and urine are everywhere in here. That's not water. That's That's

urine coming from under the toilet. You cannot touch the toilet, period. The sink do not work. They be in the They in the room 24 hours with no water. A mentally ill dude was in this cell right here. They've been up there like 6 months. That's feces on the wall right there. It smell like mold in this room cuz ain't no air coming out of this ventilation system right here. It's supposed to be a microphone. The way we get in touch with them. You see the water coming down the wall. So, what's the call box for? For fights

or something? Yeah, for medical emergency. If somebody in need and in distress. So, what happens if you're in trouble in the cell? How do you get help? Inmate depend on inmate. While the inmate to officer ratio across the nation is four to one, here in Clayton County, officers are outnumbered 100 to 1. With officers stretched thin, the jail enforces strict paramilitary style discipline to maintain control. In the south wing of the Clayton County Jail, Deputy Rolex, a training coordinator and his officers, prepare to execute a shakedown searching for contraband.

Originally, I went to the Marine Corps and after the Marine Corps, I wanted to be a teacher. And I was a teacher for a while. Then the news of uh white cops killing black people really stuck with me. And I said, "Hey, I have the background. I have the education. I can go and make a difference." So, I went to the police academy and then I found Clayton County to be the place that I wanted to be. Game plan. Housing unit two, go in, do what we got to do, find what we can find, get out. On three. One, two, three. This is a shakedown, so we're looking for drugs.

We're looking for shanks. When you're doing these sort of things, you want to think like a criminal. Where would I hide stuff? Where could I hide stuff? If we have a broken mirror, always step on them. See if I feel anything hard. And these are wicks. So, you use tissue, and they put some sort of chemicals on it and burn it. This is how they get high. Here's an example. Here's an example of them taking a tissue, rolling it up, putting chemicals on them, and lighting them. In jail, a fire can turn deadly in minutes.

Inmates locked behind steel doors with no way out can suffocate from smoke inhalation long before the flames even reach them. It's not just the fire that's deadly. It's being trapped with no escape. They're usually pissed when I'm done. We don't want to mess it up too bad, but there's something in here. That makes sense because they'll try to protect themselves or they'll try to harm someone else. They hit in the right spot, it's over with for them. I would be afraid of my life in jail.

Clayton County Sheriff to take control. Can I get Bravo number two? Eager to maintain visibility among staff and inmates, recently elected Sheriff Levon Allen is carrying out his daily check-in of the jail. Now, I'm not looking at you right now. I'm over here. Okay. Oh. Oh, Sheriff one day. Carry on. Hello. I was elected the youngest sheriff in Metro Atlanta history, you know, at 35 years old. It goes back uh as far as 1864. Culturally, I don't uh take it for granted that of course everyone on this wall does not look like me.

It speaks to the change of how the county has changed um as a whole as well. And of course um I think I'm the youngest and most handsome of the area now. I'm a cop's child. My mother was a sheriff's deputy for the Fulton County Sheriff's Office. She did that all my life. But there was a couple of situations that happened that kind of pushed me towards law enforcement. My aunt was tragically murdered by her uh long-term boyfriend. It was a murder-suicide where he shot and killed her and then of course shot and killed himself.

Few years later, my brother was tragically murdered in the streets of Atlanta through gun violence. And then 8 years later, my sister was ultimately murdered from domestic violence. So, I lost both my oldest brother and oldest sister uh my aunt to violence and that's why I got into law enforcement. I truly do this because I live in Clayton. I have four kids and a wife that lives in Clayton that I'm protecting. Of course, I'm going to protect your family just as well as I protect my own. I didn't want to take the safety and put that in anyone else's hands but mine. All right, they're going to come talk to you.

Sheriff Allen is determined to tackle the long-standing scandals and conditions plaguing the jail. All right, y'all right? I think what makes life tough in the Clayton County Jail is we're not having complete funding. Hey, hey man, y'all y'all back up. Now, y'all want me to come here and disrupt y'all, I will. Just back up and do what y'all doing, but back up behind the line. Hold on, I'll be back here to talk to y'all. Our job is only to hold someone until they're either found guilty or not guilty. But, to make someone life uh live in here or violate their rights while they're here is not my job and not

what I'm trying to do. We need to make sure that the funding comes to the jail so that we can prevent these issues. What are you walking right here? Water from the plumbing. Not sure if it's dirty water, clean water, but ultimately it's water and that's not how it's designed, so we need to fix it. When I took over as sheriff, we had 62 toilets that were broken. The 62 toilets cost $8,600 each and it takes 14 to 16 weeks to build one toilet because that's a customized toilet. 25 years ago having a customized toilet that takes 16 weeks to build, it might have been conducive to what was going on

because it wasn't overcrowded. But now we need to kind of change that whole entire system and then make sure that we get this type of stuff fixed like that. What we got? What's Shoplifting. Shoplifting, okay. What she got? Driving on suspended license. Got it. In intake, new arrests are piling up. The sheriff is attempting to relieve some pressure on his overwhelmed staff. You good? What's your last name? Yeah, pay board. That's it right there. And that's Is that it? That's the only thing he has? Says driving on suspended license.

How much is his bond? Um, suspended license is $1,500. He's here on a driving on suspended license. So ultimately he would stay here until he can come up with $1,500 and ultimately the theory is if he's in jail and not working he won't be able to come up with $1,500. So he would stay here ultimately indefinitely until his case goes to court on a $1,500 bond on driving on suspended license. Okay, yeah, you can do a do the R on it. Yeah. Due to us being overcrowded and I have the ability to give him a own recognizance bond. So I'm going to let him out without paying the money and then he can get out.

Hey, get somebody else to drive you, man, a Uber, okay? All right, you going to take care of it. the sheriff has ordered the sanitation of a bug infested unit and the distribution of clean clothing. These guys have complained of bed bugs. So, we're going to get them showered and changed. And while all that process is going on, we're going to take care of their housing section. Hey, put your stuff in your room. Take it in. I'mma feed you and then I'mma bring you back out so I can do the showers. Yeah, our sanitation in here right now.

They cleaning. They sterilizing the rooms with the light treatment gun. They bleaching it, fabuloso and everything down. And they pressure washing the showers. Everybody take a shower, six at a time, all right? Make sure y'all grab everything y'all need. While we're doing sanitation in that section, we're going to start ferrying down five or six down to intake at a time. And all white clothes. Get them showered, clean up, uniform, bring them back, get another six. Step into a stall. Take off your clothes. We shut the lights here. So, you going to take the shower. The chemicals is in the shower.

How's it looking right now? So far, I don't see not one. I don't even see no egg. As the jail funnels inmates through the delousing showers, Milton Davis is among them. He's to receive clean clothing, something he's been asking for weeks. Not clean. They don't got no bugs on no eggs and none of this. I will say this though, the sheriff, he kept his word. This is not a prison. This is pre-trial detention facility. So, anybody can be in here from any walk from life, any issue. But, you know, that doesn't mean they should be treated a certain way.

Only the bottom tier should come out. Top tier remain in. Everyone should be treated the exact same until they appear before court and then they'll go to prison and the prison system will deal with it. So, if there's any issues or anything that happens, you know, I want to be able to truly say I'm putting my best foot forward trying to fix it. Room's been sanitized. Spray down along with your mat. Grab your mat. Where's your mat? This is serious. You have to understand that these are human lives. Behind those jumpsuits, whether the color is orange or red, they have a heart that push blood through it.