More people were stabbed in Fulton County Jail than all of Atlanta last year

There were more stabbings in Fulton County Jail than violent crimes committed with a knife or other “cutting instrument” in all of its surrounding city of Atlanta, Georgia, in 2023, according to new government data.

A Department of Justice (DOJ) report published Thursday listed 314 people as being stabbed in the jail in 2023, while there were only 269 instances of all violent crimes involving a knife in Atlanta that same year, according to the Atlanta Police Department (APD) data reported to the FBI. Fulton County Jail also had more stabbings in a single month than Miami-Dade County Jail had in a whole year, despite Miami-Dade housing 1.5 times more people, according to the report.

“I had knives put to my throat, and I had to call my mom telling them, please wire somebody some money or I’m going to be killed,” a detainee at the jail told the DOJ in September 2023. “Nobody should be subject to that at a jail where you’re supposed [to] be waiting to get your day in court.”

Of the 293 violent crime instances in the city reported by the APD, 244 incidents with knives were aggravated assaults, 17 were robberies, three were rape and five were homicides, according to the FBI.

Fulton County Jail’s official capacity is 1,125 people, however, the jail reached 3,400 in July of 2022, according to the DOJ report. In 2022, 366 people were in temporary beds on the floor of the jail due to overcrowding.

From 2022 to November 14, six people died from attacks in the jail, according to the DOJ report. Moreover, emergency medical services in the prison were “grossly deficient” in providing care, with the non-homicide and suicide mortality rate in 2022 being three times the national rate for 2019, the most recent year with nationwide data.

The mortality rate is also likely undercounted due to some deaths occurring outside of jail, such as one case where an inmate died in hospice care and was not counted in the total from the jail, according to the DOJ report.

Fulton County Jail did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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