MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Protestors fed up with the conditions inside the Shelby County Jail gathered Downtown Monday demanding change. FOX13 has shared a series of issues at 201 Poplar, including overcrowding, staffing shortages, broken utilities, fights in the intake area, and inmate deaths.

"No one should die while in custody, and especially someone who is legally presumed innocent and has not been convicted of any crime," said Tyler Foster, Vice President of Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope (MICAH). "Dozens of people have passed away while in custody over the last few years. And yet, despite this, there has been no material change to the way we approach justice in Shelby County."

Foster was among the protestors demanding immediate change to the jail. Some of the short-term demands include taking immediate action to process people out of intake within 48 hours; ensuring that once a release is ordered, inmates are released within 24 hours; and taking immediate action to radically improve conditions in intake, including hiring additional medical staff, and ensuring access to phones, showers and legal counsel.

"The conditions that are occurring at the jail, whether it's rodent infestations, mold, indiscriminate use of pepper spray by corrections officers, refusing to allow people to have mental health treatment, medical treatment, refusing to allow them access to showers and basic hygiene. That is inexcusable. It is unconscionable."

One protestor, who wanted to remain anonymous, told FOX13 her son has been held inside the jail for two months. She claims he isn't getting the medical treatment he needs, and she says she fears for his life.

"My biggest fear is my son not making it home," she said. "My son is a mental patient. He's not getting the treatment that he needs. So, I mean, you don't even know if your loved one's going to make it out or not."

For months, Sheriff Floyd Bonner has stressed that something does need to be done to the jail's aging facilities that are beyond repair. In June, he told FOX13 there are a number of issues causing the slowdown in the intake process.

Sheriff Bonner said, "When the detainee comes in, there's a process. They have to be classified. They have to see nurses. They have to see a psychiatrist. Various reasons we don't have beds. Some of the intake issues is because of staffing. Obviously, I've made no secret about it. We are short of staff, like every other jail in the country."

Sheriff Bonner has said the county needs a new jail but it could cost more than a billion dollars. The Shelby County Commission is looking at possible sites for a new jail, including the old Firestone Tire Plant in North Memphis. But the activists say the planned location for the new jail is not the right answer.

"Moving the jail and the prison there, particularly without actually understanding the long term consequences, would be yet another mistake in anything call to action right now that you that the community or those empowered to what they should do moving forward," said Foster. "For so long, Shelby County and Memphis have just poured more and more money into policing and jails and punitive systems of oppression, quite frankly. And instead of addressing the root causes of crime, mental illness, generational trauma, poverty, substance use, lack of job opportunities, these are things that should be invested in that would actually materially reduce crime rather than just building a new criminal justice center and jail and court system and spending millions of dollars on that.

MICAH is hosting a Transformational Justice Town Hall Thursday, August 14th to talk about problems inside the jail. The town hall happens at the Gaisman Community Center from 5:30p.m.-7:30p.m.