The names of the other four people who died in August in the Fulton County Jail are Montay Stinson, 40 years old, on Aug. 1, who had been held since Oct. 2022 without charges; Christopher Smith, in jail since Oct. 2019 with no bond, found “unresponsive” in the medical unit on Aug. 11; Alexander Hawkins, 66 years old, found “unresponsive” in the medical unit on Aug. 17; and on Aug. 31, 23-year-old Dayvion Blake was killed in a knife attack which injured three others.

Most officials, including Fulton County Sheriff Patrick Labat, claim the solution is to build a new jail at the cost of $1.7 billion and in the meantime transfer 700 inmates to the Atlanta City Detention Center, which has its own history of neglect, human rights violations and deaths.

In fact, it had been slated to be closed and refigured as a community resource center until Mayor Andre Dickens and the Atlanta City Council reneged on their prior vote and promise.

The people who have been named in this article were Black and poor and were challenged in some cases with mental health issues that this profit-driven system provided no care or solutions. Their unnecessary deaths underscore the truth of the abolitionist slogan, “Prisons are concentration camps for the poor.”