As you step off the elevators in Fulton County’s main jail, you hear the building’s quiet hum and maybe a few voices echoing in the distance. Incarcerated people, wearing gray jumpsuits labeled FCSO and bright orange plastic slippers, who are in the halls cleaning or being escorted to another part of the facility, are made to turn and face the wall when reporters or other non-jail staff pass.
Exposed pipes and electrical wiring hang low over the hallway leading from the elevators to the housing area. When you enter the two towers where people are held, the reality of the disparate conditions in which the people in the care of Fulton County live becomes abundantly clear. One or two corrections officers are responsible for supervising dozens of people at a time. Inmates are frequently left alone in their housing units, supervised by officers in the tower who watch them on surveillance cameras.
The problems with the Fulton County Jail have long predated the tenure of current Sheriff Patrick Labat. In his fourth year as the top law enforcement officer in Georgia’s largest county, where more than 30 individuals have died in his custody, residents and elected officials alike are looking to him to solve decades-old issues.
“We have a criminal justice [system] failure, and the sheriff’s office is right in the middle of it,” Labat told Capital B Atlanta in a conference room at 901 Rice St., the county’s main jail. “The courts don’t have the resources they need. The public defender’s office doesn’t have the resources they need. The solicitor’s office, the DA’s office, they don’t have the resources they need.”
Like any other government agency in Fulton County, the funding for the sheriff’s office is determined by the board of commissioners, an elected body with six district representatives and one at-large chair of the board. Over the past few years, the commissioners have allocated millions of dollars for renovations, and raises and overtime for corrections officers.
But, to Labat’s frustration, they have refused to fund what he says is the only thing that will allow him to maintain constitutionally adequate conditions, a brand-new jail facility.
READ MORE: Renovating Fulton County Jail Isn’t Enough, Sheriff Says
During an exclusive interview and tour of the Rice Street Jail, Labat and Lieutenant Michael Lynch pointed out the numerous structural and technological deficiencies that regularly posed a threat to incarcerated people and detention officers alike.
Water damage is evident throughout the building from leaky or busted pipes that have caused mold growth, and other damage that is often only covered up with a paint job.
Parts of the physical building are falling apart, partially due to old age, but Labat and Lynch also pointed out multiple spots where they say incarcerated people have ripped away the building to make homemade weapons.
Too Expensive to Repair
When Labat first took office in 2021, the county commissioned a 15-month, $2 million jail feasibility study to evaluate whether repairing the existing jail or replacing it with a new one would be the best path forward. At the time, the jail population had peaked at just over 3,000 people, more than double the 1,125 it was designed to hold.
By December 2023, Labat and the firm hired for the study were presenting their findings that a new jail building was necessary and that the old facility had outlived its time. The proposed new jail would cost between $1.7 billion and $2 billion.
“Several members of the board, some running for reelection, did not want to have a conversation around taxes and how do we finance this,” he recalled.
While the sheriff believes a new jail is the only viable path forward, it is not only the county commissioners who are unconvinced that a pricey new facility is the solution. Criminal justice advocates like the ACLU of Georgia and the Communities Over Cages Coalition have criticized the jail feasibility study’s failure to account for the declining crime rates, and reminded residents that Fulton County was facing virtually the same issues when the current jail was built over 40 years ago.
READ MORE: Overcrowded and Deadly: Fulton Jail Inmates Left Vulnerable as Aid Ends
The proposal for a new jail ultimately failed to get the support of enough commissioners who were willing to vote to fund the project.
“I could have the cure for cancer, and those four board members currently will not vote for it. It’s a sad state of affairs. We’re in a space where, if no one else is going to fight for my team, if no one else is going to fight for those that can’t, fight for those that we serve, be it behind the walls or out in our community, I’m gonna continue to fight,” Labat said.
Last month, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis expressed similar frustration with the commissioners who have repeatedly refused to allocate more funding to her office.
“My opinion is that Commissioner Rob Pitts is a liar, Commissioner [Bob] Ellis is a liar, Commissioner [Bridget] Thorne is a liar, and [Commissioner] Khadijah [Abdur-Rahman] has decided to lie with them. They have decided that they do not care about humanity,” she told Capital B Atlanta.
Earlier this year, Fulton County, in partnership with Atlanta and Grady Health System, opened a new Center for Diversion and Services as an alternative to jail for nonviolent and misdemeanor arrests.
Though it went largely underutilized in the first few months it was open, the Atlanta Police Department is reporting increased use of the facility.
A spokesperson said the sheriff’s office is pleased by the APD reports because they account for the majority of arrests brought into Fulton County Jail.
Federal Intervention
In the time it took to complete the study, over a dozen people died in custody. In September 2022, the particularly gruesome death of 35-year-old Lashawn Thompson led the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division to open an investigation into the conditions at the Fulton County Jail.
Thompson, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia, had been found unresponsive in his cell, covered from head to toe in insect bites. A private autopsy revealed that in the 32 days before he died, he hadn’t received his prescribed medication. Thompson’s family sued Fulton County, who agreed to settle the case for $4 million.
The DOJ published its 97-page findings report in November 2024, detailing the constitutional and human rights violations against the hundreds of people incarcerated in Fulton County.
“After an extensive investigation, we find reasonable cause to believe that Fulton County and the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office violate the constitutional and statutory rights of people incarcerated in the Fulton County Jail,” the report stated.
While the physical deterioration of the building played a significant role in the DOJ findings, the lack of adequate staffing and failure to hold staff accountable for abuse and misconduct were similarly critical to why the conditions were found to be inhuman and in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
“The DOJ [report] is an opportunity for us,” Labat said. “Have we increased training? Absolutely. Do we need better equipment? Absolutely. Are we in a position where we’ve been transparent? That’s how we make these arrests.”
In June, a former sergeant in the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office was charged by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia for civil rights violations and falsifying records for her alleged conduct against incarcerated people.
“So the DOJ didn’t say we weren’t holding people accountable. We have to do a better job, and most of it starts with attracting talent,” he continued.
As a result of the report earlier this year, the county and the federal government entered into a consent decree to ensure systemic changes at the jail and prevent the DOJ from bringing a civil rights lawsuit against Fulton County.
This summer, the commissioners voted to begin planning for a $1.2 billion new medical and mental health facility; however in a press release Labat criticized the move as a “political game of smoke and mirrors.”
“It’s like us being inside a burning building and saying that we’re going to build a fire station next door in five years,” Labat said. “There is no relief for the sheriff’s office for 901 Rice St., for those residents that we provide care and custody of for eight to nine years, we need immediate relief.”
On the tour, Labat pointed out the millions of dollars in renovations made over the last few years with funding from the commissioners that he said put a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. In refurbished housing blocks where the floors had been recently painted, flooding from already defective shower stalls essentially undid the work.
To address overcrowding, Labat suggested that the county invest in modular buildings similar to those the governor is exploring with the Georgia Department of Corrections. These structures could be built in six to nine months, according to Labat, and could be used for safely housing mental health patients and a wellness center for employees.
“The fact is that as we move north of 3,000 individuals incarcerated again, more than half with mental health concerns, we need to do something immediately. Around the country, jails have become the de facto mental health facilities. We need immediate relief,” Labat said.
Inadequate medical care has been a major gap in the ability of the sheriff to provide constitutionally adequate conditions to the people in his care. Part of the current problem is that NaphCare, the company hired to supply health care services at the jail, is unable to provide some of its contractually required services because of the lack of detention officers to allow its employees to move safely throughout the jail.
On Aug.31, the judicially appointed consent decree monitor, Kathleen Kenney, released her first report after her team observed and advised the sheriff’s staff at the jail for six months. The report highlights four key objectives for the sheriff’s office to work toward in the next six months: protection from harm via classification and housing assignments, protection from harm via adequate staffing and supervision, environmental health and nutrition, and medical and mental health care.
READ MORE: ‘This Is Not Normal’: Protesters Decry ‘Atrocious Conditions’ at Fulton County Jail
Labat said that while changes and improvements have begun, he is still 400 to 500 employees short, and without the funding to properly staff the jail it will be difficult to address Kenney’s concerns.
“Until these obligations are met with the appropriate staffing, the appropriate training, the appropriate resources, we will still be treading water and kicking this can down the road like we have been for 20 years,” Labat said.
