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Monday, December 16th, 2019

‘A Cesspool of a Dungeon’: The Surging Population in Rural Jails

Author:     Richard A. Oppel Jr.
Source:     The New York Times
Publication Date:     Dec. 13, 2019
 Link: ‘A Cesspool of a Dungeon’: The Surging Population in Rural Jails
Stephan:   This story is yet another horror from the American Gulag, the largest incarceration of human beings on earth. But it is also a story about the failure of government, and the failure of the illness profit system to actually concern themselves with anything but profit. The opioid crisis was legally created by the pharmaceutical industry under a compliant and complacent government of Democrats and Republics, both were complicit and enabling, and when hundreds of thousands of Americans had become involved there was no proper or adequate response from government so the gulag became the default healthcare system.

The courtroom in Hamblen County sees a steady stream of people accused of crimes driven by drug addiction. Many are repeat offenders.
Credit: Kristine Potter

MORRISTOWN, TENNESSEE — The Hamblen County Jail has been described as a dangerously overcrowded “cesspool of a dungeon,” with inmates sleeping on mats in the hallways, lawyers forced to meet their clients in a supply closet and the people inside subjected to “horrible conditions” every day.

And that’s the county sheriff talking.

Jail populations used to be concentrated in big cities. But since 2013, the number of people locked up in rural, conservative counties such as Hamblen has skyrocketed, driven by the nation’s drug crisis.

Like a lot of Appalachia, Morristown, Tenn., about an hour east of Knoxville, has been devastated by methamphetamine and opioid use. Residents who commit crimes to support their addiction pack the 255-bed jail, which had 439 inmates at the end of October, according to the latest state data.

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