A new report from the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia found that Fulton County officials are failing to take advantage of sustainable solutions to address overcrowding and the ongoing humanitarian crisis at the county jail.
The study was published on the heels of major flooding at the jail last weekend. Officials estimated 70,000 gallons of water were released into the facility after a pipe coupling failure. No injuries were reported, and a spokesperson for the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement to Capital B Atlanta that the department is still assessing the full impact of the flooding.
Sheriff Patrick Labat, who runs the jail, regularly points to understaffing and the building’s deterioration as the main reasons the jail is so dangerous. Advocates such as the ACLU and Community Over Cages argue that for decades overcrowding and slow courts have been the main drivers of the jail’s dangerous conditions.
The ACLU’s analysis of jail population data from 2023 to 2025 found that the county’s progress in reducing the jail population, which would allow for more housing units to be renovated, was short-lived.
“As in 2023, our 2025 analysis indicates that a significant percentage of people held by Fulton County remain in custody because of their inability to pay bail,” the report states.
In addition to cash bail and the underuse of diversion services that direct people out of the system, detention for low-level misdemeanors is driving the jail’s population growth.
Although the Center for Diversion Services saw an uptick in the second half of 2025, it is still underperforming based on projected numbers.
During a Fulton County Board of Commissioners meeting in June, Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who also chairs the Justice Policy Board that oversees the diversion center, told commissioners that to achieve their goals, more police officers would have to think holistically instead of immediately resorting to arrest and booking.
“We change three lives a day. That’s great; that’s three more than before, but we built something that can do more, and we ought to empower it to do so,” McBurney said.
In 2023, the ACLU found that 85 people, or 3% of people incarcerated, had only a misdemeanor charge. Last year, that number had risen to 449 people, or 17.7% of the jail’s population.
“Given that these individuals typically have shorter lengths of stay, increases of this magnitude can contribute meaningfully to booking churn — people cycling in and out — and overall jail crowding,” the report states.
The authors note that this increase was likely impacted by Senate Bill 63, which Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law in May 2024. The bill added 30 crimes, including 18 misdemeanors, to the list of charges requiring a judge to impose a cash bail.
Over 30 people have died in Fulton County custody in the past five years. The 2022 death in custody of 35-year-old Lashawn Thompson, which made national headlines, triggered an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The DOJ’s investigation was released in November 2024 and details a litany of issues that contribute to the deadly conditions inside the jail: excessive use of force by detention officers, the building’s state of disrepair, lack of medical and mental health care, and discriminatory use of restrictive housing (solitary confinement).
To prevent a civil rights lawsuit over the unconstitutional conditions at Fulton County Jail, county officials entered into a consent decree in January 2025 with the DOJ based on six goals:
- Provide reasonable protection from violence to the incarcerated population;
- Ensure that incarcerated people are not subject to excessive force;
- Provide safe and sanitary living conditions;
- Ensure appropriate medical and mental health care is provided to incarcerated people;
- Ensure that restrictive housing practices do not pose an unreasonable risk of harm, do not discriminate against people with mental health disabilities, do not harm 17-year-olds, and provide due process; and
- Provide eligible 17-year-olds access to special education services.
To comply with the consent decree, Labat has repeatedly said, Fulton County needs to build a new jail. After an extensive exploratory process, a bill to approve the proposed new $1.7 billion jail failed to pass the county Board of Commissioners by a vote of 4-3.
“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,” Labat told Capital B Atlanta after the vote.
Organizations such as the ACLU say a reduction in the jail’s population through increased use of diversion services and accountability courts, prioritizing cases of currently incarcerated people, and more consistent use of signature bonds are likely to be more lasting than a new facility.
“Research has found that expanding jail capacity often leads to increased jail populations, even when crime and arrest rates remain stable. When jurisdictions build new jail beds to relieve overcrowding, those beds are frequently filled as judges, prosecutors, and law enforcement adjust their decisions to reflect the newly available space.”
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