The Crown Point, IN jail has been housing newly-admitted detainees in "holding cells" for weeks and months at time. The cells, which are designed to hold only a few prisoners for periods of hours while they await booking, are routinely crammed with dozens of men for weeks at time while the jail officials ignore the basic human needs of these detainees.

"The holding cells are so unsanitary as to be life-threatening," says the suit. For as long as a few months, detainees are held in the cells and given no "shower, clothing changes, or soap. One toilet is provided for up to 40 men. Human waste lies on the floors of the cells. As such, the cells are breeding grounds for dangerous infections…. Making conditions even more dangerously unsanitary, some detainees who withdraw from drug addiction in the holding cells vomit and defecate on themselves and the floors."

The detainees are forced to sleep without a mattress, directly on concrete, often tightly-packed together. New detainees with serious conditions are often denied needed medication.

One of the plaintiffs, Roberto Cantu, went nine days without receiving his diabetes medication, endangering his life. Feeding needs are also substantially ignored in the holding cells. Cantu lost nearly 50 pounds in six weeks from being starved in the cell and was let out of the holding cell for only one hour during his 45 days in the cell.

On May 6th, the Gary Post-Tribune reported that over the past three years, the Lake County, IN Jail has had double the number of suicides as Chicago's Cook County Jail, even though the latter has ten times the daily population of the Lake County jail (a pdf of the article is attached below).

"The citizens of Lake County will be furious once they understand what is happening at their Jail," said Michael Kanovitz of Loevy and Loevy Attorneys at Law, the firm that filed the suit. "I am sure the voters would not let public officials treat animals this cruelly, much less fellow human beings. The Sheriff should have addressed this problem long ago, but now the federal courts will need to step in and fix this horror."

Loevy and Loevy recently won class certification for a case of detainee mistreatment at Chicago's Cook County Jail, the largest jail complex in the country. A pdf copy of the new lawsuit against the Lake County, IN jail, Richard Flood, et al. v. [Lake County Sheriff] Roy Dominguez, et al., No. 2:08 CV 153 PS, is attached below. The judge is Philip Simon of the Northern District of Indiana.

Dept of Full Disclosure: The author of this article works at Loevy and Loevy.