DETROIT – Inmates say an issue with the systems at the Wayne County Jail have left them stuck inside for far longer than they should be, and they added that the conditions are “horrendous.”
Local 4 spoke to Chief Judge Patrcia Perez Fresard, of the 3rd Circuit Court in Wayne County, about the new justice center at the end of August.
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“We want people to know that we are here to serve,” Fresard said at the time. “We want to offer the best service to our community. This is a state-of-the-art structure. Safety, technology -- this will give the public confidence in the judicial system.”
That was the goal of merging Wayne County’s justice system, which had been spread out between the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice and the Wayne County Jail.
Now, it’s all in one facility along I-75, just south of I-94.
But a cyber attack at the jail in early October has brought justice to a halt for many people who’ve been charged with crimes.
We’ve heard from inmates who said they’re stuck inside the new jail, including Royale Chatman.
Chatman was booked on Sept. 26, 2024, and had a court date scheduled for the very next day. But nearly a month later, he still hasn’t seen a judge.
“They have lost track of us,” Chatman said.
An insider told Local 4 that as the Wayne County Jail scrambles to recover from the cyber attack, staffing has been a major issue.
When the computers shut down, it “came to a bad point,” and jail management systems went from the 21st Century to pen, paper, markers, and head counts, that source said.
There are issues tracking down who’s in the jail, where they are in the jail, whether they have court dates, and whether they have bond.
When you look for a person inside the jail online, the website shows an error page.
Local 4 has learned there’s a massive effort to get county servers back to where they should be in order to operate a massive jail.
Some judges are getting just as frustrated as the inmates. They have cases and dockets in front of them, but no defendants.
One judge who‘s overseeing a homicide case said she will dismiss the case if a defendant isn’t brought before her.
Lillian Diallo, head of the local criminal defense BAR association, told Local 4 that families are waiting for justice, but it‘s not the judge’s fault if they start dismissing cases because they can’t keep waiting or keep someone locked up.
“Someone needs to get it together,” Diallo said.
Defense attorneys, inmates, and other sources are telling Local 4 that basic jail services, like commissary, are failing. So when money is put into an inmate‘s account, they’re having trouble accessing basic food and hygiene products that have been paid for.
“I am filthy,” Chatman said. “Everyone is. It is horrendous.”
Local 4 is told staffing is behind that issue, too.
Wayne County Sheriff Raphael Washington told Local 4 over the phone Tuesday that he can’t speak on the record after a lawsuit was filed on behalf of some inmates.
He insisted that computers have been restored and that his team is working nonstop to catch up on the problems left over from the cyber attack.
When we asked Wayne County Executive Warren Evans for an interview, a staff member said he might not be available. The staffer is trying to get an update on the cyber attack, where operations stand, what‘s going on inside the jail, and what’s being done to fix it.
Here’s a statement from Wayne County officials:
Since the cyber incident occurred, the Wayne County Information Technology team worked diligently to restore impacted operations.
The following systems are operational:
We defer to the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office on whether inmates are getting to their hearings, as this is specific to the Sheriff’s operations.
Wayne County spokesperson
