During a Wednesday meeting, the Fulton County Board of Commissioners voted to approve a $1.1 billion plan to overhaul its troubled jail system, despite opposition from two board members and community leaders.
The plan includes building a new special-purpose facility to house vulnerable inmate populations and renovating the county’s main jail on Rice Street. The plan is intended to reduce the need to outsource inmates to other locations and begin addressing years of dangerous and inhumane conditions.
Commissioner Robb Pitts previously said that he sees no need for a newly constructed jail and has not received any direction from the federal monitor that there is a need to do so.
The 4–2 vote was split, with Pitts and Commissioners Bridget Thorne, Bob Ellis, and Khadijah Abdur-Rahman voting in favor of the plan. Commissioners Dana Barrett and Mo Ivory opposed the measure, raising concerns about cost, funding, and community input.
“I think this is a very fiscally responsible approach… while not so financially exhausting us that we’re not going to have the ability to do the other things that we desire to do,” Ellis said.
Jail under federal scrutiny
The Rice Street jail is currently under a federal consent decree citing inhumane conditions, including failure to protect inmates from violence and inadequate medical and mental health care.
In 2024, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported more than 60 deaths at the jail between 2009 and fall 2022, and 10 deaths of inmates in custody in 2023.
On Wednesday, consulting firm ACR Partners presented a study to the commissioners covering the Rice Street jail, its annexes, and the Atlanta City Detention Center. The study estimated that renovating Rice Street would cost $552 million, while building the new special-purpose facility would cost $536 million. Combined, the work could take as long as nine years to complete.
Commissioners question cost and funding
Before the vote, Commissioner Mo Ivory argued that the county was trying to move forward without a realistic financial plan. She said a 2024 directive to cap spending at $300 million is now $1.1 billion.
“I just cannot support something that I have no idea how it’s going to get funded,” she said. “…We do these fake numbers and we say let’s move forward based on these fake numbers, and then deal with the crisis when the crisis comes.”
Ivory said the public should have a voice in shaping decisions about how the jail facilities will be reconstructed and made safer.
Commissioner Dana Barrett questioned why renovating the Rice Street jail was still under consideration, given the higher costs and a shorter lifespan of the structure compared to new construction.
She also criticized the lack of a clear plan for how inmates would be classified or relocated when needed, warning that simply placing inmates wherever necessary would repeat the same problems that have contributed to the jail’s current crisis.
