If funding for a new jail in Fulton County is approved next year, the facility could open in 2029, but will not be finished until 2031, according to a presentation received by Fulton County commissioners on Wednesday. The county considers a new jail as the Georgia State Senate investigates the conditions at the troubled Fulton County Jail.
The proposed facility will cost nearly $1.76 billion, and will boast enough room to provide accommodations and services for 4,416 inmates, according to the presentation delivered by consultants from architecture firms TreanorHL and STV.
About a third of that space will be dedicated to a medical wing, though consultants who presented to the county commissioners urged local law enforcement to avoid pretrial detention, especially for those who are mentally ill.
The current Fulton County Jail was built in 1989 with room for 1,125 inmates, and though its functional capacity was raised to 2,453, earlier this year it housed at least 3,200 detainees. Additionally, the jail is reportedly crumbling, and Sheriff Pat Labat (D) claims inmates have started using pieces of the building’s walls as makeshift weapons to attack one another.
While the new facility would open in 2029, the commissioners were told that it would not be complete until 2031, which The Atlanta Journal-Constitution noted means the county will continue to pay $38.2 million per year for other jails to house the county’s inmates.
Fulton County Commissioner Bob Ellis questioned the price of the proposed jail stating, “I think it is too big” and “the cost of it is too much,” before suggesting “some sort of series of public input” or input from “third parties who could look at this and poke holes in it.”
Ellis is a repeated critic of Labat, who he said seemed to be using the jail’s Inmate Welfare Fund “as his personal slush fund” last month. Labat used the fund to rent or purchase bounce houses, disc jockeys, jugglers, florists, gift cards, food giveaways, and vehicles.
Though Labat has few friends among the commissioners, he is facing an advancing investigation by the Georgia Senate, which is seeking to determine the root cause of the overcrowding at Fulton County. The senate launched its investigation after a mass stabbing brought the number of deaths in the facility up to 10 so far this year.
In November, the Senate subcommittee heard testimony from supervisors with the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office about the conditions at the facility, especially noting the more than 1,200 stabbings that have occurred at the jail this year.
After the Wednesday meeting, Fulton County Commissioner Marvin Arrington told Fox 5 Atlanta that the current plan to pay for the facility involves a “hybrid between a public private partnership and the issuance of bonds in order to build” the jail, but agreed with Ellis’ suggestion that a sales tax increase may need to be approved by voters to cover the nearly $2 billion price tag.
Aside from the facility’s deteriorating condition, its intense overcrowding has been separately blamed on pandemic-era court closures and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis “cherry-picking” cases based on her political biases.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Georgia Star News, The Virginia Star, and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
