By DaQuan Lawrence
Special to the AFRO
dlawrence@afro.com
According to a recent report issued by the Office of the District of Columbia Auditor (ODCA), the nation’s capital is overdue for a new jail. The extensive report, titled “Urgent Need for New D.C. Jail,” outlines deteriorating conditions at the current jail facility. Authors of the report say the issues range from in-custody deaths to staffing issues, health and safety concerns, as well as mental health and substance abuse challenges.
While the Department of Corrections (DOC) is located in Northwest D.C., the city’s Central Detention Facility (CDF) is located in the Southeastern quadrant of the city at 1901 D Street. Overall, the report provides detailed information about precarious conditions, failing infrastructure and a rate of deaths by overdose 10 times higher than the national average.
Based on the findings by ODCA, the current jail is also facing issues of overcrowding. Figures from the DOC show that of the 7,508 people admitted in FY 2024, the median length of stay (LOS) for men in custody was 168 days, while the median LOS for women in custody was 59 days.
About 36.48 percent of men in custody stayed less than three months, 41.99 percent stayed between three months and one year, and roughly 21.18 percent stayed more than one year according to the DOC. An average of 58.68 percent of women in custody stayed less than three months, 34.71 percent stayed between three months and one year, and 6.61 percent stayed more than one year.
The recent report follows a 2019 report entitled, “Poor Conditions Persist at Aging D.C. Jail; New Facility Needed to Mitigate Risks,” where the office of D.C. Auditor Kathy Patterson identified that the D.C. jail had a history of severe overcrowding, unsafe facilities and unsanitary conditions.
Native Washingtonian, activist and former Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) Commissioner, Joel Castón, believes that the CDF is a bleak building that needs to be changed.
“If you put someone in harsh, dark and gloomy environments, then that’s what you produce. That’s what’s going on inside of the Central Detention Facility,” Castón told the AFRO. “Incarcerated people are detained all the time, sometimes spending more than 12 hours in their cells, so many things need to be changed.”
In 2021, Castón was elected to serve as the commissioner for ANC district 7F07 while imprisoned in the D.C. jail for murder. He became the first person to hold the seat and the first incarcerated person elected to public office in Washington, D.C., after serving 27 years at 16 different facilities before receiving parole.
“A new facility could be more humane [and] a place that’s suitable for the staff that work there and the people who must be detained while having their legal proceedings rectified,” Caston explained.
In 2018, Castón became a founding mentor of the Young Men Emerging (YME), a treatment unit for young adults at the D.C. jail, according to the Department of Corrections. The program currently provides counseling and mentoring opportunities to help young people gain developmental skills needed to succeed. The program was highlighted by the Justice Policy Institute for its impact.
“I’m hoping that a new facility design can provide natural sunlight because constant darkness impacts human psychology,” he said.
During his term, served between 2021-2023, Castón called for systemic changes to improve the treatment of incarcerated individuals, the quality of their facilities and reductions to the negative impact of incarceration on families.
“As ANC Commissioner, I represented the individuals inside of D.C. jail, as well as women that were inside of the Correction Treatment Facility. I focused on listening to constituents that were inside and outside the facilities,” Castón said.
The Correctional Treatment Facility was constructed by DOC and activated in May 1992 as a specialized medium security institution. The eight-story structure is next to the CDF on 19th and D Streets, SE, Washington D.C.
The Central Detention Facility opened in 1976. The 2019 site observations by ODCA and the Department of Health (DOH) inspection reports of the D.C. jail cited DOH environmental violations, including water penetration through the walls from a leaking roof, mold growth on walls and damaged shower stalls.
The findings of the recent report show that the need for a new jail or renovations to the current facilities may be necessary. The report found the following:
- DOC facilities constantly need repairs to multiple systems in both common areas and residents’ cells, including broken and malfunctioning cell doors, locks, keys, gates, plumbing and wiring
- DOC fails to maintain consistent healthy temperatures in either facility, and fails to maintain consistently clean, hygienic and safe conditions and does not adequately control parasites, vermin and mold
- DOC provides minimal and inconsistent data to the public, oversight bodies and family members regarding the circumstances of deaths in custody
- There were 400 documented incidents of DOC staff use of force during the audit period, frequently involving the use of pepper spray on residents
- Even with growing substance use treatment offerings at the jail, DOC is not addressing all substance use issues among residents who need care, with insufficient residential treatment beds, vacant peer navigator positions and the need to administer Narcan at least 148 times during the audit period.
Last year, Castón was nominated to serve on the 17-member D.C. Sentencing Commission. In his recent role, he continually calls attention to the importance of addressing the root causes of incarceration, reforming the penal system and providing opportunities for rehabilitation.
“That jail is old, but instead of new jails and prisons, we need alternatives to incarceration because what currently exists is not sufficient for human beings,” Castón said. “We need something that’s in line with recent developments, such as in Norway, which is renowned for having a facility that provides a more normalized experience for incarcerated people.”
Castón mentioned that although laws and policies are in place, bias and prejudice also exists, and that he believes holding dehumanized individuals in degrading environments does nothing to address the public health and public safety crisis.
“The old way of thinking was, ‘if we treat people harsh, they won’t want to come back,’ but no one wants to come to jail, so that premise is false,” Castón said. “We need penal institutions that maintain human respect and dignity, so while people are inside, their sentence is an opportunity that prepares them and prevents recidivism.”