BREAKING NEWS: Wayne County’s new jail faces chaos, lawyers say: Floods, fighting, staffing troubles
While Wayne County officials tout the new Criminal Justice Center that was six years in the making as “cutting edge” and “state-of-the-art,” union officials and defense attorneys describe last week’s opening as riddled with problems.
Among the issues include dayslong lockdowns of inmates in crowded cells because there haven’t been enough deputies to cover the larger new complex, a union official and defense attorney told the Free Press. That has led to incidents of fighting and inmates breaking fire sprinklers and causing flooding in protest, said Allen Cox, President of the Wayne County Deputy Sheriff’s Association.
“The first day out, it’s fights, flooding and everything. It’s turned into a nightmare instead of a dream,” Cox said last week.
The exterior of the new Wayne County Criminal Justice Center in Detroit on Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024.
As of Monday, his phone kept ringing from deputies calling to complain since the new facility, built by Dan Gilbert’s Bedrock for over $670 million, opened its doors last week. The stress has been so severe that Cox said two deputies quit since the move and a handful of others are considering leaving.
Lillian Diallo, president of the Wayne County Criminal Defense Bar Association, said inmates are protesting conditions inside the new facility by refusing to leave holding areas for their court hearings. Three days ago, Diallo said an inmate reported having to defecate and urinate in a bag because the plumbing inside cells was not working.
“It’s like “Shawshank Redemption” or something,” Diallo said, referring to the movie.
Diallo and defense attorney Brian Brown said they have been forced to wait hours before meeting with clients because there’s currently only five visiting rooms available in the new complex. In the old jail, there were two to three visiting rooms for detainees to meet with their attorneys on every floor, Brown and Diallo said.
Diallo said she and other attorneys couldn’t enter the building on Wednesday; she said deputies told her it was because of staffing shortages. And on Saturday, Diallo said jail staff never brought her client in for a visit through video call. She said she waited on the call for her client for two hours.
“You got us messed up over there, that’s a bad deal,” Diallo said.
Confidential conversations between attorneys and inmates can be heard so clearly throughout the complex, including in courtrooms, that passersby can hear nearly every detail of their client’s cases, causing possible constitutional violations, according to a defense attorney who spoke to the Free Press under the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak to the news media.
The Wayne County Criminal Justice Center stands at Interstate 75 and Warren in Detroit on Monday, Sept. 26, 2022.
When asked about the issues, the county issued a general statement from Wayne County Executive Warren Evans, praising the move, saying it took three days to move over 1,400 inmates and almost 120 juvenile detainees and “was conducted without major incident.”
“An undertaking such as this involves considerable planning and is no easy task,” Evans said.
“Getting acclimated to a new and complex facility requires time and the continued hard work of all our employees, and we will make any adjustments necessary to ensure the safety and well-being of those who work at and populate the CJC.”
Other jail officials defended the progress.
“I think things are going well — it’s only been the first week. Officers did a really, really good job,” said Robert Dunlap, Chief of the Wayne County Jail last week.
“I’m sure things are not moving as fast as maybe some people think it should.”
Ed Foxworth, a spokesperson for the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office, said the sheriff and staff are excited about the Criminal Justice Center. He acknowledged challenges within the new facility, but said they’re up for the task to address them.
“We don’t own the facility. We didn’t build the facility. There are some things we wish were in better shape, but we’re making the best of it,” Foxworth said.
“As we look six months to a year from now, we look forward to sharing the stories of how citizens are experiencing an even greater level of service than what they already are.”
The new complex off Interstate 75 near East Ferry Street houses the county’s 2,280-bed jail, juvenile detention facility, the criminal courthouse plus staff and administrative offices for the sheriff and prosecutor.
County officials and Gilbert’s firm Bedrock brokered a deal in 2018 for the real estate firm to build the justice complex after the county abandoned plans to build its own jail, known as the “fail jail,” along Gratiot Avenue downtown in 2013, after costs spiraled $91 million over the project’s $300 million budget.
The new complex ended up costing $670.7 million, with the county’s share at $502.8 million and Bedrock’s share at $167.9 million, according to documents obtained by the Free Press.
A call to officials with Bedrock was not returned late last week.
For years, Wayne County’s jail facilities were under judicial oversight because of deplorable and antiquated conditions. The facilities were reportedly unsafe and riddled with garbage and filth, apparent black mold or mildew, and unsanitary conditions. Basic medical needs for inmates were reportedly not being met. And in 2016, inmates were committing suicide at a rate described as alarming and unprecedented.
Understaffing at the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office has also been a persistent issue prior to the new Criminal Justice Center being built, according to Cox.
The new center is meant to remedy the issues, but deputies were given false promises of a facility better than the county’s old jail, Cox said.
Cox, first vice president of the union Robin Hornbuckle, and second vice president Elton Oliver were at the jail nearly all day Thursday tending issues inside the building. That included deputies being denied meals they are entitled to in their contract and tensions rising between inmates and deputies, leading to several incidents of fighting and inmates breaking fire sprinklers and causing flooding in protest, the union officials said.
“Our people are exhausted, overworked,” Hornbuckle said. “You have people walking in and putting their uniforms on the desk and leaving.”
Hornbuckle compared the situation for deputies inside the jail to working in a “labor plantation” and deputies are being asked to do more with less. And Cox said deputies “are tired of being an afterthought.”
Doors aren’t working right, and neither are brand new TVs, phones, and tablets for inmates, Cox said. Some inmates weren’t receiving clean linens, Cox said.
Some inmates were having meals skipped, according to the defense attorney who spoke to the Free Press anonymously. Family members of detainees who haven’t heard from their loved ones because they hadn’t had access to phones have asked attorneys whether their loved ones are alive.
Defense attorneys are frustrated, Diallo said.
“They think their clients are in a worse situation than they were before, because we don’t have the same access to our clients. And sometimes the only thing that kept them tethered to reality, or kept them tethered to something, would be us. They do not have that anymore,” Diallo said.
Cox, Hornbuckle, and Oliver said many of the problems they’ve described could have been avoided, had management listened to their concerns prior to the move into the new criminal justice center. Mainly, the union warned them of potential challenges and stressed proper training and preparedness to management.
Cox said union officials are meeting with jail management this week.
“Our members are hopeful that management is going to get this right, and the union is hopeful that management will see that we can all work together,” Hornbuckle said.
