Whistleblowers air abuses at Atlanta federal penitentiary

ATLANTA — Two former administrators at the federal penitentiary in Atlanta told members of a congressional subcommittee inmates have been severely abused amid inhumane conditions at least since 2014.

Terri Whitehead, a recently retired former jail administrator at the prison, and Erika Ramirez, who served as chief psychologist there, described a dilapidated rat-infested facility with moldy walls and sewer backups where drug abuse is rampant and neither guards nor inmates are held accountable for their actions.

“Any suggestion for change was met with resistance,” Ramirez testified during a hearing held by the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. “It’s devastating to see such a disregard for human life.”

The subcommittee has been investigating the Atlanta penitentiary for 10 months, interviewing whistleblowers from the federal Bureau of Prisons and reviewing internal agency documents.

“Interviews and records reveal a facility where inmates … were denied proper nutrition, access to clean drinking water, and hygiene products; lacked access to the outdoors or basic services; and had rats and roaches in their food and cells,” Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., the subcommittee’s chairman, said.

Rebecca Shepard, a lawyer with the federal Defender Services Office, testified the victims of abuse include pre-trial detainees, who are supposed to be presumed innocent. They receive little exercise and inadequate access to showers and telephones to call relatives, Shepard said.

Given insufficient food that often is infested with roaches, many lose weight and become emaciated, she said.

“Clients are treated as though they are in solitary confinement,” Shepard said. “[They] cannot communicate with families, visit with clergy, or participate in productive programming.”

Whitehead said the severity of abuses at the Atlanta facility are unique to the federal prison system.

“Atlanta is far off the grid,” she said.

Michael Carvajal, who has been director of the Bureau of Prisons since 2020, testified he wasn’t aware of the problems at the Atlanta prison until the middle of last year. When they came to his attention, he said he reassigned the facility’s top-level staff and reduced the inmate population.

Carvajal said he also has put in place increased guard training, enhanced security measures, renovated housing units and strengthened accountability for guards and inmates.

“What happened in Atlanta is unacceptable,” he testified. “We are constantly looking to strengthen oversight and do better.”

But Ossoff and Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., the subcommittee’s ranking Republican, expressed frustration at Carvajal’s insistence he wasn’t in the loop concerning the situation in Atlanta until a year ago.

Under intense questioning from the two senators, Carvajal repeatedly testified reports of incidents of abuse at the Atlanta facility did not “rise to my level” and that there was an “obvious breakdown in communication.”

“It’s almost willful ignorance,” Johnson shot back.

“It’s a disgrace for the answer to be, ‘Other people deal with that,’ ” Ossoff added. “It is utterly unacceptable.”

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