The Justice Department announced Thursday a civil rights investigation into dilapidated and unsanitary conditions at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, as well as violence against detainees.

The department will look into the conditions in which inmates are held, their access to mental and physical health care and violence perpetrated against detainees.

The investigation was sparked in part by the death of Lashawn Thompson, an incarcerated man who died in the jail last year "covered in lice and filth," Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division said in a news conference Thursday.

This is a developing story and will be updated.