The Justice Department on Monday announced it has opened an investigation into the conditions of a regional jail in southern Virginia.
The investigation will focus on how Hampton Roads Regional Jail treats inmates who have mental illnesses, the federal agency said.
The jail serves the cities of Chesapeake, Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk and Portsmouth, Va., and holds approximately 1,300 inmates.
Specifically, the DOJ will see if the jail violates the constitutional rights of inmates who have mental illnesses by putting them in isolation for long periods of time. It will also determine if it violates inmates’ rights to adequate medical and mental healthcare by denying them access to services, programs and activities because of their disabilities.
“All prisoners, including those with mental illness, have a constitutional right to receive necessary medical care, treatment and services,” Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of the civil rights division, said in a statement. “The Justice Department will conduct a thorough investigation, led by the facts and the law, to review conditions in the jail.”
The investigation comes on the heels of the death of Jamychael Mitchell, who died inside the Hampton Roads Regional Jail in Aug. 2015. A judge had ordered him to be transferred to a mental health facility after spending 100 days in the jail, but he was never moved. Mitchell, 24, died of starvation alone in a cell with feces on the walls and urine on the floors.
In May, Mitchell’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit in Norfolk Federal Court seeking $60 million in damages.
Another inmate, Henry Clay Stewart, died two days after he filed a grievance asking for help. According to a local report, the 60-year-old was vomiting blood and unable to eat for weeks and his Aug. 4 grievance went unnoticed.
The investigation into Hampton Roads Regional Jail will be conducted under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act and under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Under CRIPA, the DOJ has the authority to investigate violations of prisoners’ constitutional rights that result from a “pattern or practice of resistance to the full enjoyment of such rights.”
