Fulton County’s new sheriff on Thursday made the case for why he thinks Atlanta should sell its jail to the county, despite the mayor and local activists standing firm against that idea.
Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has promised to close the city jail and turn it into an equity center. But after Pat Labat took office as Fulton County sheriff in January, he revived a proposal that Fulton buy Atlanta’s jail.
Local social justice activists have spoken publicly against that idea, arguing that the county should not take over a new jail given the long-standing problems inside Fulton’s jail. Bottoms has also pushed back, saying her plan to close the city jail will address systemic criminal justice concerns.
Over the years, during previous mayoral administrations, other Fulton officials have proposed buying Atlanta’s jail, but those talks fell through. Atlanta’s 1,300-bed jail is now mostly empty due to a number of criminal justice reforms the city has enacted over the past several years.
During a virtual work session with the City Council’s public safety committee on Thursday, Labat equated Atlanta’s jail to a relief valve that could help solve some of the decades-long overcrowding issues at Fulton’s jail.
“If the city wants to get out of the jail business, let the county be the first choice to run the facility,” said Labat, who ran Atlanta’s jail before being elected county sheriff last year.
Labat didn’t present a rosy picture of the current conditions at Fulton’s 2,600-bed facility on Rice Street. It’s overcrowded by about 350 detainees, forcing some inmates to sleep on pads on the jail floor. Fulton is unable to comply with the best practices for preventing the spread of coronavirus due to the crowding, Labat said.
With the additional space the city’s detention center would provide, the county could address some of those problems and could also implement more pre-trial services for detainees.
“Right now the city jail is more equipped to create an environment where we treat people more like humans,” Labat said.
Credit: Bill Torpy
Credit: Bill Torpy
Bottoms did not participate in the virtual meeting. Speaking to the councilors, Jon Keen, the city’s chief operating officer for the city, referenced a letter the mayor recently sent to Fulton County Commission Chairman Robb Pitts that outlined her opposition to selling the jail. Keen said the mayor’s office is open to working with the Fulton sheriff’s office on various criminal justice reform initiatives.
Labat’s proposal for Fulton to purchase the jail “does expand incarceration in the heart of our city,” Keen said. “The vision for the facility and for that land is to serve a higher and better purpose for our city than incarceration.”
City Council President Felicia Moore said during the meeting that she recently took a tour of the Fulton County Jail and was horrified by the poor conditions. She said the mayor’s office should consider working with the county to alleviate some of the overcrowding problems.
“It doesn’t make sense that we can’t find a way, either in the short-term or the long-term, to work this out,” said Moore, who is also running for mayor against Bottoms this year.
Activists have pushed for Bottoms to make good on her promise to close the city detention center. A city task force recommended last summer that the detention center be demolished and replaced with a center focused on social services.
Tiffany Roberts, who works on local reform efforts for the Southern Center for Human Rights, said Labat’s proposal to take over Atlanta’s jail is troubling given the conditions at the jail he currently runs.
“The argument is, the more jail beds, the safer a city is. There’s no data that points to that being true,” said Roberts, who is also pushing for Bottoms to release a firm date by which she hopes to close the jail.
Fulton Commissioner Khadijah Abdur-Rahman recently called for the county to build a new Rice Street jail after her own tour of the county’s jail.
“I saw what most Fulton County citizens have never seen, and if they did, they would be horrified,” Abdur-Rahman wrote in a news release. “There are inmates sleeping on the floor because of overcrowding, and the living conditions are worse than what we see in third-world countries or war zones.”
Many who spoke during the public comment period Thursday asked that Atlanta’s jail be closed and said it is taking the city too long to make good on its promise, especially given the task force’s recommendation to demolish the building.
Last month, several of the mayor’s top deputies presented a plan for closing the jail by moving police booking and processing to the city courthouse and eliminating a number of jail employees.
Some councilors pushed back on that plan and called for more meetings with Labat and other county and city officials before any action is taken. Councilwoman Joyce Sheperd, who chairs the public safety committee, said another work session is planned for March 4.
