ACLU calls for changes to reduce Fulton County Jail overcrowding

FULTON COUNTY, Ga. - The ACLU of Georgia is expected to discuss a new report highlighting overcrowding at the troubled Fulton County Jail on Thursday.

The Rice Street Jail, which opened in 1989 in a neighborhood west of downtown Atlanta, has been plagued by overcrowding, unsanitary conditions and violence. Ten people have died in Fulton County custody this year. 

On Sunday, one of the five co-defendants on trial with rapper Young Thug was stabbed during a fight at the jail, delaying the trial's proceedings until 2024.

Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat has spoken openly about the condition of the jail - saying its walls are crumbling. Last year, Labat’s deputies wheeled wheelbarrows of makeshift knives pulled from jail walls into a county commission meeting to show how decayed conditions and violence feed each other.

In recent months, Labat has campaigned to build a new jail, which could cost $1.7 billion or more. Fulton County Commission Chairman Robb Pitts has said he wants to seek other solutions, in part because such an expensive undertaking would probably require a tax increase on Fulton County’s million-plus residents.

The main jail holds about 2,600 inmates on a typical day, even though it has only 2,254 beds in cells. The remaining inmates sleep in plastic bunks on the floor in common areas. Federal officials say people held in Fulton County are predominantly people of color, with data identifying 87% of the jail population as Black.

Fulton County already pays to house some of its remaining 1,000 inmates outside the county, but Labat has sought proposals to ship some inmates to private prisons on Georgia’s southern border or in Mississippi.

Such a move would be expensive and leave inmates far from families and lawyers. Pitts wants to house more inmates in empty portions of Atlanta’s city jail, but the Fulton County sheriff has to provide the jailers and Labat says he does not have the staff.

In their new analysis, which is based on data from the Sheriff's Office from Oct. 26, 2023, the ACLU says that the jail has lowered its number of individuals in custody by around 500 to around 3,000.

While that shows an improvement, ACLU officials say that further efforts are required before the county adds extra jail space.

"Fulton County should reject spending billions on a new jail when there is still work to be done to ensure we are not engaging in wealth-based detention and over-incarceration. Fulton County’s history shows we cannot build our way out of overcrowding, and the ACLU of Georgia recommends Fulton County leaders let state law and evidence-based scholarship be our touchstone to reduce the overcrowding at Rice Street before considering any new jail building," said ACLU of Georgia Deputy Director of Policy and Advocacy Fallon McClure.

The ACLU recommends that the county focus on removing people by indicting people within 90 days of their arrest and setting bonds much earlier in the court process. Of the thousands of individuals jailed at the end of August, around 35% had yet to be indicted and faced no other charges.

The jail received national attention after the death of 35-year-old Lashawn Thompson, who was found dead in a bedbug-infected cell in its psychiatric wing. 

An independent autopsy released by the family in May said Thompson "was neglected to death." An earlier report from the Fulton County medical examiner’s office found no obvious signs of trauma on Thompson’s body but noted a "severe bed bug infestation." It listed his cause of death as "undetermined."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.