The U.S. Marshals Service has so far transferred 200 people out of the D.C. Jail to a federal prison in Pennsylvania and other federal facilities as part of what they call an “ongoing draw down” from the jail because of concerns about conditions.

News of the exact number of transfers comes after weeks of confusion for family members and advocates about exactly who was being moved from the jail and when. As more people are moved, advocates and formerly incarcerated people also say they doubt whether jail residents will really experience improved living conditions in the federal prison system.

The transfers were prompted by a surprise USMS inspection that surfaced a litany of serious complaints about conditions in D.C.’s Central Detention Facility, including cell toilets clogged with human waste, guards punitively withholding food and water from jail residents, and other abuses.

The marshals service initially said it would move all of the approximately 400 people in its custody from the jail in response to these conditions. The USMS has custody of people being held in the D.C. Jail pre-trial on federal charges, as well as people who are awaiting assignments to federal prisons after sentencing, and people who are in the D.C. Jail as they go through certain legal processes or need to make court appearances.

The transfers began during the week of November 8, and the movement seems to have continued despite the fact that D.C. officials have said they hoped an agreement they reached with the marshals service would prevent the need for future transfers. The marshals service described the transfers as “ongoing” in an emailed statement Thursday night.

“Since our announcement on Nov. 2 that we would be removing all USMS inmates from the District of Columbia Department of Corrections (DC DOC) Central Detention Facility (CDF), approximately 200 inmates have been moved as part of the ongoing draw down to other facilities, the majority to USP Lewisburg in Pennsylvania, as well as other facilities in the region,” a spokesperson for the agency wrote.

DCist/WAMU has reached out to the marshals service to clarify which facilities other than Lewisburg have received transfers from D.C in response to the inspection report. The marshals service says the people in their custody who remain at CDF have stayed there for “a variety of reasons,” including pending court-related matters, emergency stay orders granted by the court, and medical issues that prohibit them from being transferred.

The unprecedented USMS decision to phase out its use of the D.C. Jail as a holding facility has prompted concern from advocates in D.C, who worry that people’s access to family and lawyers will be severely curtailed at the federal facility.

People with experience either serving time in federal prison or communicating with loved ones in the Bureau of Prisons have emphasized that it is difficult to access phones and attorneys at federal facilities like the one in Lewisburg.

“When I was there, there was no such thing as regular access to a phone,” says Andre Gray, a senior peer navigator at University Legal Services who previously served time at USP Lewisburg. “You had to wait on the phone for maybe two or three days before you can get it.”

Attorneys with experience navigating the federal system say scheduling a single legal call to the BOP is an arduous process that can require multiple follow-ups with prison officials.

For people in federal custody who have not gone to trial yet, as well as those who are going through complicated legal processes like petitioning for release, access to legal calls and visits from their attorneys is vital.

“These guys’ mental condition is my biggest concern at this point,” says Gray. “They’re being removed from [a place] where they can reach their lawyers, where their lawyers can come up and speak with them, and being taken to an atmosphere with possible abuse and neglect.”

Lewisburg has faced its own problems and controversies regarding prison conditions and the treatment of residents. The facility’s special management unit was the subject of a number of lawsuits over violent conditions and its lack of mental health care.

In addition, the mass transfers have produced confusion and anxiety for local families and jail residents’ loved ones. The Bureau of Prisons’ COVID-19 protocols say that people who are transferred to other facilities are required to quarantine for two weeks, which has led to long gaps in communication from people who were transferred.

When D.C.’s Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice Chris Geldart testified at an oversight hearing last month about jail conditions and transfers to Lewisburg, he said he hoped that an agreement the city reached with the US Marshals Service would help D.C. “get the folks who have been transferred back.”

Geldart told lawmakers that the agreement “doesn’t speak directly to stopping the further transfer at all, but it talks about how we can work on what conditions created their desire to move people so they don’t have that desire any longer.”

The USMS inspectors, according to a memo from the acting U.S. marshal, found evidence of “systemic failures” in the D.C. Jail’s operations. Some of the issues laid out in the memo include people receiving cold and congealed meals, an overwhelming smell of human waste in the facility, and guards antagonizing detainees in the jail and encouraging them not to cooperate with inspectors.

At the time, Geldart said that the marshals service had transferred 137 people to Lewisburg from the D.C. Jail, and that he did not know of any other imminent transfers. But the memorandum of understanding the two parties signed makes no mention of a timeline or conditions for returning people in USMS custody to the District, and the USMS has sole authority over where to detain the people in its custody. And now, 200 people have been sent away from the D.C. Jail, with more presumably to come.

In the meantime, D.C.’s Department of Corrections and the USMS say they have been collaborating to improve conditions at the Central Detention Facility — the side of the D.C. Jail complex where people have raised the most serious of complaints.

As part of the memorandum of understanding the two parties signed, the USMS placed a detention liaison at the facility “to ensure the ongoing care and safety of USMS prisoners held at DC Jail,” the USMS spokesperson wrote.

The D.C. Department of Corrections did not respond to a request for comment about what actions it had taken to address conditions by publication.

The surprise inspection that led to the mass transfers out of the jail came after sustained complaints from the lawyers of people charged with crimes connected to the violent Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, 40 of whom are being held pretrial in the D.C. Jail. But D.C. residents and advocates say people from D.C. have faced unacceptable conditions in the D.C. Jail for years. About 87% of the D.C. jail population is Black, and 93% of the jail population is nonwhite, according to the Public Defender Service for D.C. —- and advocates and residents have voiced frustration that it took complaints from white Jan. 6 defendants to bring attention to issues they had been ringing the alarm about for years.

Anthony Petty, an advocate with the group Neighbors for Justice, spoke with WAMU/DCist outside the D.C. Jail last week.

“We didn’t we fix these problems 20, 30 years ago? Why are we still talking about these problems now?” he asked.

He wondered why the city had made no progress on gutting or rebuilding the facility— an idea that has been discussed for years but seen little progress. In last month’s oversight hearing, Geldart declined to commit to a timeline for building the new facility even when pressed by Councilmembers.

“As you can see, they’re building buildings over there,” Petty added, gesturing to the construction happening right across from the jail in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, which has rapidly developed in recent years.

Petty has not been able to speak directly with people he knows who were transferred. But when he does, he says his priority will be asking how they are and what they need.

“I just want to make sure that they’re mentally OK,” says Petty. “You need some books? … You need some money so you can make phone calls? That’s one of the first things I’d like to ask.”