Atlanta and Fulton County officials on Monday took a major step toward reducing local arrests with the launch of a facility intended to serve people experiencing behavioral and mental health issues.
The Center for Diversion and Services is a rehabilitative hub open around the clock, seven days a week, where law-enforcement officers and community response teams can bring people in need of support who would otherwise be incarcerated.
“Rather than taking them to jail, this more community-based approach is essential for creating a more effective and compassionate public safety ecosystem,” Mayor Andre Dickens said Monday afternoon during a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the downtown Atlanta center, which is housed inside the Atlanta City Detention Center but has its own entrance.
The need for alternatives to incarceration is paramount, considering Fulton County Jail’s history of overcrowding and inmate mistreatment. Last summer, the U.S. Department of Justice announced an investigation of the correctional facility for civil rights violations, specifically against people with psychiatric disabilities. The same 2023 report revealed Black people were 87% of the jail’s population, despite making up less than half of the population in both Fulton County and Atlanta.
Politicians and activists alike have called for a human-centered approach to public safety that prioritizes people and recognizes that a prison cell is not a solution for a person in crisis. At the diversion center — which is operated by Grady Health System — those individuals can address immediate needs related to mental illness, homelessness, extreme poverty, or substance abuse with access to a sobering room, showers, laundry services, and a food pantry. They can also be connected with the longer-term support services led by the Georgia Justice Project and Policing Alternatives and Diversion Initiative (PAD).
PAD’s case managers will be tasked with helping people improve their situations by connecting them to necessary support services, such as medical and mental health care, substance-use treatment, housing support, and help in securing an ID or governmental benefits.
The Georgia Justice Project will operate a warrant resolution clinic to work with people to resolve any active warrants they might have in Fulton County Superior or State Courts, or in Atlanta Municipal Courts.
“I could not be more delighted that this idea has become so much bigger than PAD or any one agency but has really started to become the fabric of our city and our county and part of the new normal in how we respond to people’s needs with care instead of punishment,” said PAD’s executive director, Moki Macias.
According to Grady Health System’s president and CEO, John Haupert, 14% of people admitted into the psychiatric emergency room are brought in by police.
“Until now, officers may not have had any choice but to take the individual to jail or to Grady,” Haupert said of the center. “But the diversion center will offer an alternative location, potentially freeing up 130 psychiatric emergency room beds a month at the hospital.”
With the resources it provides, the center — the product of a partnership between Atlanta and Fulton County — could serve more than 5,000 people each year, according to Fulton County Commissioner Khadijah Abdur-Rahman.
The Justice Policy Board oversaw the creation of the Center for Diversion and Services. Fulton Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney and Atlanta City Council member Dustin Hillis serve as co-chairs.
“We have for too long said: That’s a trespasser, that’s a drunk, that’s a homeless guy, that’s a problem,” McBurney said. “And we haven’t been thinking, that’s a person, a person with a story. A person with some problems — but that person isn’t the problem. That is a neighbor, that’s a community member.”
McBurney added that if the center achieves its purpose, he’d like to see it moved into a larger location in the next few years.
