By Akiva Bryant
With the recent wave of celebrities appearing at Fulton County Jail, such as Donald Trump and rappers for the label YSL, Fulton County Jail has constantly been in the headlines. Celebrities aren’t the only reason the jail is infamous, however. In 2023 alone, 10 people have died inside of the jail. While 10 may seem like a low number to some, it poses a serious question about the safety and ethics of this jail.
Some people argue that the deaths are a worrying representation of how the jail treats its inmates. Niyah Amezqua ’26 believes that inmates still deserve to be treated fairly.
“It’s important for people, even if they’re criminals, to be seen as people and to have rights, just like normal citizens do,” Niyah said. “They obviously made bad choices, but that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve to be treated equally.”
While students like Riley Jones ’26 don’t plan on going to prison, they recognize how the jail could still affect them.
“If anyone I know is going there, and if the security of the jail is compromised, that could be bad for me,” Riley said.
She also explained how long sentences are unjustly given out sometimes, especially to black men. Indeed, according to a 2017 study on “Demographic Differences in Sentencing” done by the United States Sentencing Commission, “Black male offenders received sentences on average 19.1 percent longer than similarly situated White male offenders during the Post-Report period (fiscal years 2012-2016).”
One of the biggest topics surrounding American prisons in general is prison reform. Prison reform, defined by Wikipedia, is “the attempt to improve conditions inside prisons, improve the effectiveness of a penal system, or implement alternatives to incarceration.” Prison reform is often stressed by those impacted by the deaths at Fulton County.
Here at Woodward, prison reform isn’t talked about as much, yet students and faculty still have opinions on it.
Students such as Bennett Rosenthal ‘24 support prison reform and recommend certain changes to the prison system.
“I believe that there definitely needs to be a change in how we kind of build and work our prison systems, especially with getting rid of, like, solitary confinement and other very, like, cruel and inhumane principles,” Bennett said.
Dr. Bill Nicholson, commonly known as Dr. Nic by students, is a history teacher who was born and raised in Atlanta. He believes that the problems within the jail show a bigger issue.
“When you hear news of the deaths that are occurring, and the beatings and the neglect and the abuse, it’s disturbing,” Dr. Nicholson said. “I think it reflects a systemic problem in the system that needs to be addressed.”
Supporting prison reform, he also sees a connection in which people in the past would have opposed the kind of treatment Fulton County inmates go through.
“This goes all the way back to Dorothea Dix in the 1840s,” Dr. Nicholson said. “She’s doing the same thing with when they locked people away in mental asylums for their life. Just forget about them till they die.”
Ms. Jodi Hester, the Associate Director of College Counseling and the advisor for the legal studies club, also has strong opinions on prison reform and the overall prison system.
“Unfortunately, in our country, it’s so much about ‘you did this thing, we’re going to write you off,’” Ms. Hester said. “And that’s not really how we should be approaching justice when you think about how issues of class, socioeconomics and race intersect with the justice system.”
Ms. Hester believes that there is a bigger picture when it comes to prison reform. Prison reform can affect the entirety of the United States, rather than just Fulton County.
“I think there’s a greater need than ever to really think about [prison reform], particularly when you look at what’s happening in the state of Illinois. In Chicago, they have now gotten rid of the cash bail system,” Ms. Hester said. “Because so often, if you have committed a crime, and it’s a lesser offense, you’re gonna go to jail. And if your family is such that you can afford to have bail, you can get out, but if you can’t afford whatever the amount is, you will sit there.”
The cash bail system is used for someone awaiting trial. In order to guarantee that that person would attend all court dates, an amount of money is placed in which they would receive after they’re done with the court process.
“Sometimes the people who are sitting in [Fulton County] Jail for things like traffic issues, they haven’t paid a fine,” Ms. Hester said. “I mean, it’s really lesser things, but they sit there because they can’t afford it. So now, remember, I’m talking about lesser crimes. If you’ve committed major felonies and death, things like that, that’s a different story. But sometimes you gotta kind of think about that.”
But the real question a student or staff member at Woodward Academy may ask themselves is “Should We Care?”
The general consensus is that we should care; Woodward is a community-based school. And although a good portion of students don’t live in Fulton County, the jail is still a part of the community after all.
But no matter how you view this situation, the discussion of prison reform is a complicated one that will last many years. More people will become familiar with what’s happening inside of the jail and maybe rethink how they view prisoners, just like Bennett has.
“Well, the first thing I think of is obviously that [prisoners] committed a crime,” Bennett said. “But the next thing that would immediately pop into my head is that prison systems are meant to help reform and re-educate. When I see the prison system now and hear about things that are going on in prisons, it seems… like they’re being treated like animals.”
