Fulton County Sheriff Patrick Labat, making his first public comments on the proposed purchase of the city’s 1,300-bed detention center, said the deal will help the county with a legal agreement to improve conditions at the decrepit Rice Street jail.
But with the county’s jail still working to remedy those dangerous conditions, and the sheriff’s office struggling with a staffing shortage, some question whether acquiring the building would do anything to address the root of the problems — which must be addressed under a legal agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice known as a consent decree.
That question was the center of the contentious hearing Wednesday afternoon during a work session of the Atlanta City Council.
After months of back-and-forth negotiations, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens agreed earlier this month to sell the Atlanta City Detention Center to the county for $68 million. The deal requires approval by both the Atlanta City Council and the Fulton County Commission.
Labat said Wednesday that the deal would allow more space to house inmates in sanitary living conditions.
“Right now, we warehouse people,” he said. “It is one of the most harrowing ways to incarcerate people, if there is a way to do it.”
Credit: Natrice Miller / Natrice.Miller@ajc.com
Credit: Natrice Miller / Natrice.Miller@ajc.com
A DOJ investigation found conditions at the Rice Street facility to be dangerous and unconstitutional. The county entered the consent decree requiring it to make improvements that will bring the jail up to standards.
The current $1.3 billion plan is to build a new facility to house inmates with special medical or mental health needs while renovating the existing Rice Street building. The plan also calls for the county to build a temporary facility to house inmates from the jail during renovations.
For nearly four years, the city has leased beds in the Atlanta detention facility to the county. The lease agreement is set to expire in December.
An Aug. 20 report by the DOJ following a compliance inspection found the sheriff’s office had made “substantial progress” in some areas of jail improvements, but called staffing and supervision a critical issue.
“During this reporting period, the County and (sheriff’s office) made meaningful progress in several foundational areas, particularly in staffing analysis, staffing reporting, operational data collection and compliance monitoring systems,” the report said. “However, those improvements have not yet translated into meaningful improvements in daily jail operations.”
Fulton County Commissioner Marvin Arrington Jr. called the situation “desperate,” saying it is gravely important for the sale to go through.
“The county is in the unenviable position of having to house whoever 15 cities lock up,” he said. “We don’t have control over who the cities arrest or bring to the Fulton County Jail, but we are responsible for holding them in a place that is constitutional and sound.”
Advocates for incarcerated people pushed back against the county’s contention that buying the detention center would fix the problems noted in the consent decree, saying those poor conditions have existed for years.
“It does not matter how many beds you give the Fulton County sheriff, if the sheriff cannot staff the jail,” said Tiffany Roberts, a representative of the Southern Center for Human Rights, and Community Over Cages ATL.
City councilmember Liliana Bakhtiari said there is “no world” in which she would vote in favor of selling the detention center, adding the county first needs to figure out how to prevent people from being arrested in the first place.
“Saying you’re against mass incarceration and then buying a jail to have more carceral space? That’s ridiculous,” she said.
Credit: Natrice Miller/AJC
Credit: Natrice Miller/AJC
Other Atlanta City Council members expressed concern about how a sheriff’s office already experiencing staffing issues would find the manpower for the 471,000 square-foot detention center. Labat noted that the current staff of the detention center are Atlanta city employees who could potentially be hired by the county.
“Nobody has to lose their job,” he said of the Atlanta corrections officers. “Do like some of us: retire and then come work for the county.”
The matter of where the Atlanta corrections workforce would go has been at the forefront of planning how to navigate the sale, according to city Chief Operations Officer LaChandra Burks. She said the city is in the process of making sure “every employee is taken care of,” including exploring the possibility for corrections officers to retire early without a penalty.
“We’re putting people first here in this process,” Burks said.
The legislation will next be discussed by the city council’s public safety committee meeting Sept. 28. It will then move to the finance committee before going before the full council.
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