https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/dc-jail-inmates-transferred/2021/11/02/b5255388-3be8-11ec-bfad-8283439871ec_story.html
Unacceptable conditions at D.C. jail lead to plan to transfer about 400 inmates, officials say
The U.S. Marshals Service plans to transfer about 400 inmates out of the D.C. jail to a federal prison nearly 200 miles from Washington after a recent surprise inspection found evidence of “systemic” mistreatment of detainees, including unsanitary living conditions and the punitive denial of food and water, officials said.
While “a formal summary” of the inspection, conducted last month, is still being prepared, Lamont J. Ruffin, the acting marshal for U.S. District Court in Washington, told the D.C. Department of Corrections in a letter Monday that the findings “may warrant further examination” by the Justice Department’s civil rights division.
The jail, formally known as the Central Detention Facility (CDF), houses about 1,500 detainees, of which roughly 400 are inmates awaiting court appearances in federal cases or post-sentencing assignment to federal prisons.
Many of those 400 inmates, if not most, are D.C.-area residents with family members in local communities. In light of the inspection’s findings, the Justice Department said Tuesday, the federal detainees in the CDF will be moved to the U.S. penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pa., a nearly four-hour drive north of the District.
The move will not involve about 120 federal detainees, including about 40 defendants who face federal charges in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, who are being held in the corrections department’s Correctional Treatment Facility (CTF), the Marshals Service said. That facility is located with the jail in Southeast Washington.
Ruffin, who ordered the inspection, said that conditions at the CTF “were observed to be largely appropriate and consistent with federal prisoner detention standards,” and that the problems were primarily in the main jail.
In the CDF, an eight-member team of deputy U.S. marshals found “large amounts of standing human sewage . . . in the toilets of multiple occupied cells” and many cells in which water “had been shut off for days,” Ruffin wrote.” He said jail staff members “were observed antagonizing detainees” and “directing detainees to not cooperate” with the review. One prisoner was warned by a staff member to “stop snitching.”
“Supervisors appeared unaware or uninterested in any of these issues” Ruffin wrote.
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser’s administration opposes the planned inmate transfers, said Christopher Geldart, the city’s deputy mayor for public safety.
“We take seriously the responsibility of caring for justice-involved D.C. residents and believe they should remain in D.C.,” Geldart said in a statement Tuesday. He said the corrections department strives “to provide a safe, orderly and humane environment” while regularly working on structural repairs at “the aging detention facility.”
However, Geldart called Ruffin’s letter “deeply concerning” and said city officials “are working with our federal partners to get the complete report in order to work through the specific findings.” In his statement, he did not individually address any of the findings.
The inspection, and the planned removal of federal prisoners, raises questions about the treatment of nonfederal inmates, who make up a vast majority of the jail’s population. Most of them are being held on local charges adjudicated in D.C. Superior Court. They are officially in the custody of the D.C. corrections department, not the Marshals Service.