A tattooed pastor who moonlights as a cross fit trainer arrives in Dauphin County. When he learns about the deaths at the jail, he focuses his righteous anger on the commissioners in charge. But can a progressive newcomer improve conditions at DCP?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: Who is Justin Douglas and what challenges did he face at Bridge Church?
I was out the door at 5 a.m. probably in my office, preparing, going over my notes for my sermon.
The Bridge Church is about eight miles east of Harrisburg and Dauphin County Prison. At that time, Justin didn't have much reason to think about the jail. It was just a simple rectangular brick building, kind of like his church, pretty drab and unassuming. Justin, on the other hand, is a sight to behold. He's a big guy with a beard, visible tattoos on his arms, and gauged ears.
He looks like he's in a rock band, not a pastor at a small Pennsylvania church. And the sermon he was preparing that early morning wasn't an ordinary sermon.
We had advertised that we were going to come together, talk about who we are as a community, who we've been from our beginning, and take a vote for where people feel like we're gonna go.
Justin's church was part of an evangelical denomination called the Brethren in Christ. Justin had taken a strong stance. He welcomed gay and lesbian members into Bridge Church. He was open to hiring them in church positions. On this Sunday, the community was going to take a vote on whether they wanted to continue Justin's approach. Members of the congregation were streaming through the doors.
The house was packed because we were really only supposed to fit about 100 people in that room. And I remember it being overflow down to the stairs to the foyer of people that wanted to be a part of that conversation.
But it wasn't just the churchgoers that were at Bridge Church that Sunday. When the national leaders of the Brethren in Christ found out Justin was welcoming gay and lesbian members, they strongly objected. So Justin invited the leadership to come to his church and hear from the congregation directly.
There was an open kind of popcorn, does anyone have any comments to make?
members of the church got up one by one and spoke on the stage was justin the board of the bridge church and the president of the denomination most of the people who spoke were either those who were family members of lgbt people in our community or lgbt people in our community and most of what they said was incredibly heartbreaking
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Chapter 2: How did Justin Douglas respond to being removed from his church leadership?
I coached at the time at CrossFit Hershey. So I coached the 515 class in the morning, 630 class, worked out during the window of time.
On top of all that, he was the pastor at the Belong Collective. And he and his congregation wanted to make an impact. When the city proposed clearing out a homeless encampment, the Belong Collective got involved. To Justin and his church, that was just wrong. Justin and the members of his church showed up with a U-Haul to help the displaced people move their belongings.
Justin was a natural leader. But it was still surprising when one day, between CrossFit classes, he got a random phone call.
Unrecognized number. Typically, just let it go to voicemail. Move on. I don't know. I was feeling froggy. I was like, we're going to answer this and talk to this telemarketer. And it was someone from Run for Something kind of cold calling me.
Run for Something is a group that recruits young progressive leaders and urges them to pursue political office. And they had a proposition for Justin. Run for Dolphin County Commissioner.
So much of our county government is people who have been in those positions for a long period of time and a new perspective could be helpful.
So, Justin started seriously thinking about it.
And I began to kind of research and I realized, oh shoot, they oversee the prison.
Around this time, Justin had come across some of my reporting. And when he read about Jamal Crummel, he was outraged.
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Chapter 3: What motivated Justin Douglas to run for Dauphin County Commissioner?
Justin was in the race. But getting enough signatures was just the beginning. He was a long shot, an unknown first-time candidate trying to get a seat on a commission steered by longtime incumbents. He was a super progressive Democrat in a pretty conservative county. This was the same county that kept re-electing Graham Hetrick for the past 30 years.
But he was confident that with the right message, he could disrupt things. Honestly, I was excited for Justin and his candidacy. But while Justin wanted to change the system from the inside, I was finding out just how far the system would go to keep me on the outside. In Death County, PA, Lamont Jones is fighting to uncover the truth about his cousin's death in Dauphin County Prison.
But standing in his way is a reality TV corner and a system built on secrets. If you're captivated by stories of betrayal and cover-ups, you should check out Wondery's podcast, Exposed. This series reveals the horrifying crimes of Dr. Robert Haddon, an Ivy League OBGYN who assaulted hundreds of patients while the system protected him.
From the prestigious halls of Columbia University to the courtrooms where survivors finally got their day in court, this is a story of power, accountability, and the courage it takes to fight back. Follow Exposed on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Exposed exclusively and ad-free right now on Wondery+.
Start your free trial in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. By the time Justin began his campaign for county commissioner, I had been reporting on DCP for about two years. My goal was to write stories that took people inside of the jail. People like Justin, who could see the horrors and then want to do something about them. But reporting on DCP wasn't easy.
For starters, I had been primarily working off of records requests and interviews. I hadn't actually been in the building. They wouldn't give me any kind of tour, no matter how limited or chaperoned. In order to tell the stories of the inmates at DCP, they had to call me on a recorded line.
Hey, what's up, Josh? Good morning. Good morning. How you doing, man?
Stevon Crummel is a cousin of Jamal's. I first talked to him a little over a year after Jamal's death. We spoke a few times. He gave me a really good sense of what was going on inside.
When you heard this time that you were going to DCP, what was going through your head? Am I going to die? Are they going to kill me? Is that because of what happened to Jamal? Yeah.
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Chapter 4: Why are there so many deaths at Dauphin County Prison?
I had an anxiety attack and I fell on my face and I brushed my teeth up and everything.
He also had stories about obstacles to getting medical care at DCP. After he fell and messed up his face and teeth.
They took me down to medical. My face was swollen in my mouth and they thought it was funny. The nurse wanted to throw a little comment. It was around Christmas.
The nurse told him, I guess he won't be able to sing Christmas songs this year. According to court documents, instead of giving Imhotep painkillers, the nurse gave him salt water for his busted teeth. Then she sent him back to his cell. Imhotep insisted he needed more than just salt water. He thought he might have a concussion. But when he submitted medical slips asking to be evaluated...
Imhotep's allegation is part of an ongoing lawsuit. DCP hasn't confirmed these stories.
But what Stevan and Imhotep told me about their medical slips going unanswered, they reflected a common concern I had heard from other inmates and from the medical staff inside DCP.
I remember around the Christmas time, I worked a significant amount of hours for night shift. This is Garth.
He was a nurse with Prime Care at Dauphin County Prison. Garth isn't his real name. He wanted to remain anonymous. He's concerned about retaliation.
I remember picking up sick call slips in some of the cell blocks that had been there for two or three weeks. And it's just frustrating that the other shifts didn't care enough to... to pick up the sick call slips. In correctional nursing, in my experience, a lot of the staff feel we don't have to give you the care and attention that you deserve. The saying goes, stupid games, stupid prizes.
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Chapter 5: What are the issues with medical care at Dauphin County Prison?
You know, when they first started it, it was like a deterrent. So if you come back to prison, you get charged $5 a day for your stay there. And it goes all the way, each time you come back at that recidivism rate, it goes all the way up to $45 a day that you have to pay to be incarcerated.
Lamont saw this as a blatant example of the county taking advantage of inmates any way they could. These charges would add up. They were due as soon as an inmate was released.
So just imagine if I'm at $25 a day for 23 months, what that bill is going to look like. This is a rock I can't carry when I get out. And now I may have child support. Now I got court calls. Now I got to pay the probation people. So you can see this is pushing you further and further into a hole. And most people, you're going to have a mindset of, man, I got to get this done.
So they're going to go right back to the same activity that they were doing, trying to alleviate some of the pressure from these financial obligations, which ends up getting them deeper in trouble.
Lamont made it his signature issue on the advisory board. He told the county commissioners and the warden and everyone else how this policy was leading to recidivism, how it wasn't a deterrent, but was instead making everyone in the community less safe. He slowly felt like people were actually starting to listen to him.
About a year after Lamont joined the board, Dauphin County officially ended the practice. Lamont had spent years trying to push for reforms. Now he'd actually achieved a major victory. He decided he would push for more, but with real power. Around the same time Justin was gearing up for his run for Dauphin County Commissioner, Lamont entered the race for a seat on the Harrisburg City Council.
I woke up and said, I'm going to do this. I'm going to go down here. I'm going to get this application for the vacancy and filled the application out, submitted it.
Lamont's life and work had given him a clear-eyed view of the interconnected problems facing the city. He was practical. He knew he couldn't fix everything. But he thought just the experience he could bring to the council could open up new ways of looking at those problems. And he thought his candidacy itself would be a message.
I wanted to inspire other people that, you know, they say it's never too late to change. But they need to see that.
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Chapter 6: What experiences do inmates Stevon Crummel and Imhotep Mohammed share about DCP medical care?
I don't know that I remember the first time we met. We've been in the same circles for a while.
Justin would see Lamont at events, and Justin was excited when he found out Lamont was going to run for office.
I thought the idea of him getting elected would be pretty amazing to see someone who was formerly incarcerated be a city councilman.
Justin was blown away by the coalition that Lamont was putting together.
I was amazed how much of the community turned out for his event. Like, he just had such a pulse on the community and people were listening when he was talking. At one point, while Lamont was talking, he turned to Justin. And then I remember him being like, hey, Justin, you got to come share a quick second about your campaign. And I was just like, dude, you don't owe me anything.
Like, he hadn't endorsed me. I hadn't endorsed him. But I think he was just really inviting. And I think Lamont has the ability to bring people together.
In his own campaign, Justin was going to have to figure out a way to appeal to the community like Lamont. He needed to convince voters that a guy they'd never heard of should run the county, a guy whose main focus was on Dauphin County Prison. Imagine you're living out in the suburbs of Harrisburg. You've got a nice ranch house, three kids, comfortable job, 401k.
You're not that interested in politics. You want a safe and peaceful life. You want your kids to go to good schools and get good jobs. You hear a knock at the door and you open it a crack. There's this big husky guy standing there with a beard and tattoos. At first glance, he's kind of intimidating. Your first instinct is to get him away from the door as fast as you can.
But before you can do that, He starts to speak.
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Chapter 7: What insights does the anonymous nurse Garth provide about healthcare challenges at DCP?
Hi, my name is Justin Douglas. I'm running for Dauphin County Commissioner. Good to meet you today. I'd love to talk to you about why I chose to run.
Justin pulls out a flyer. He hands it to you. And if you give him a second, he starts talking.
I would say, I don't know if you're aware, but we've had 18 prisoners die in Dauphin County Prison in the last four years since the last time you voted for county commissioners.
Justin was hoping that line, 18 deaths in the last four years, would shock the potential voters standing in front of him. And if you're that suburban voter, maybe you keep listening to what Justin has to say.
I think that's unacceptable, and I think we need to remedy that.
Justin knew he'd have to stand out to have a chance. The Dolphin County commissioners had long been a group of insiders. They had deep roots in the area. They were often strongly committed to the status quo, which put a tattooed preacher from out of town who advocated for the rights of the queer community, the homeless, and the incarcerated at a sizable disadvantage.
Two of the three incumbent commissioners were basically shoe-ins. But the third seat was held by someone who had never been elected. He had been appointed when the former chairman, a guy named Jeff Haste, had retired. Justin, like everyone in Dauphin County, was aware of Jeff Haste.
I think there is a good old boys club network in Dauphin County. And my estimation is he was one of the people at the top of that. He was definitely aligned with very powerful people. It seems as if he had personal relationships with just about every vendor in the county.
Haste had hand-selected a nominee to take his old seat, who'd been voted in unanimously by a panel of county judges. To Republicans, that seat seemed safe from the opposition, especially if the opposition was a bleeding-heart liberal like Justin Douglas. And they weren't the only ones writing him off.
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