Georgia legislators, citing Reuters report, want every jail death investigated Reuters 1/25/2021
By Ned Parker
Jan 25 (Reuters) - Troubled by deaths and questionable care in the state’s jails, several Georgia legislators convened Monday to explore reforms including requiring the state to investigate every fatality and escalating oversight of mental health and drug withdrawal crises.
Monday’s hearing was called following a Reuters series, Dying Inside, that disclosed death tolls at the nation’s largest jails. The series cited several Georgia case studies and documented 272 inmate deaths among the state’s 13 largest jails from 2008 to 2019. Suicides and medical conditions, often treatable, caused most of the deaths.