by Chuck Sharman

Analyzing population data at the overcrowded Fulton County Jail (FCJ) in Atlanta, a report from the Georgia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on January 27, 2026, found that detainees endure “a crisis with a cascade of public health and safety problems.” An earlier report from the federal Department of Justice (DOJ) in November 2024 found conditions were “horrific” for nearly 2,700 detainees confined in the jail at the time, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, Apr. 2025, p.40.]

Since then, the jail’s population has only continued to climb, reaching 2,909 by July 2025, the month the ACLU report was compiled. This shows how little has changed in the three years since a separate ACLU report found that “Fulton County’s failure to account for people’s ability to pay bail, confinement of people charged only with misdemeanors, failure to timely indict people, and local law enforcement agencies’ failure to fully utilize diversion programs has led to population levels above capacity” at the FCJ. See: There Are Better Solutions Better Solutions - An Analysis of Fulton County’s Jail Population Data, 2022, ACLU (Oct. 2022).

But it’s not just a capacity problem; as PLN reported, one detainee was found “eaten alive” by bed bugs when he died in September 2022; in December 2022, others were left to defecate in plastic bags after a winter storm knocked out heat and plumbing; still another detainee was able to claw through a crumbling wall and into an adjacent cell block, where he assaulted a fellow detainee in May 2023. [See: PLN, May 2023, p.16; Jan. 9, 2023, online; and June 27, 2023, online.]

Sheriff Pat Labatt has long lobbied for a new jail. County Commissioners approved and then scrapped a $2 billion replacement plan in 2024, deciding in August 2025 on a $1.2 billion renovation of the existing lockup, starting with construction of a new jail to hold those with serious medical and mental health needs. Meanwhile, repeated clashes over jail spending prompted a suit that Labatt filed in June 2025, accusing the Commission of usurping his authority. When the Atlanta Journal-Constitution then asked him about the renovation plan, Labatt sneeringly called it “smoke and mirrors.”

But Labatt was the one inculpated in a long-running federal class-action over jail conditions in August 2025. As PLN also reported, that monitoring report found as many as 200 detainees were left to the supervision of just one guard at the main jail, where over a quarter of all bed space was unavailable “principally due to environmental or maintenance issues.” [See: PLN, Oct. 2025, p.33.]

Factors Driving Jail Overcrowding

To deal with the overcrowding, the County has made some progress in reducing the number of people held on large bail amounts over $20,000, which in Georgia require cash payments over $3,000. The ACLU found that 28.5% of them had been in the FCJ for 90 days or more, down from 42.8% two years earlier. But of those held on more common bail amounts under $5,000—which require cash payments less than $750—the share held for 90 days or more was still 25.7%, indicating a failure to conduct ability-to-pay analyses for many detainees.

The County Superior Court was also faulted for deviating from its own Public Safety Assessments (PSA), a pretrial tool to estimate the risk that a bailed defendant in a felony case will recidivate or fail to appear for a court hearing. The ACLU found that PSA recommendations were “followed in less than 10% of felony cases,” most often “overridden to impose more conditions than recommended.”

More troubling was a big jump in misdemeanor detentions, from 85 in 2023 to 449 in 2025, now representing 17.7% of all those held in the FCJ. The County failed to fully use its Pretrial Services program, the report noted, even though it produced a stunning 95% success rate in getting defendants to attend pretrial court dates and hearings, while also avoiding re-arrest. But the program supervises “many individuals assessed as low risk who may not require this level of oversight,” the ACLU found, “while also having the capacity to support more people who remain detained solely due to their inability to pay money bail.”

Underused Diversion
and Charging Delays

Also underused was the Policing Alternatives and Diversion (PAD) Initiative. Developed for the police departments in Atlanta and Fulton County, the program “provides an alternative to police response via the City of Atlanta’s 311 line, as well as immediate assessment and linkage to services in place of a custodial arrest. Yet the ACLU found that 7.3% of those held in the FCJ—184 detainees—had no other charge than one that was PAD-eligible. The newer Center for Diversion Services (CDS), opened in January 2025, was averaging only three diversions daily of those whose cause for arrest was primarily the result of mental health and substance abuse problems. Since it has a capacity for 41, the ACLU encouraged the County to more aggressively review jail bookings for CDS candidates.

Finally, the office of County Prosecutor Fani Willis and the County Superior Court were called out for delays in charging detainees after arrest. There were 1,009 detainees—34.1% of the FCJ’s total population—who were being held with no indictment, including 243 who had waited over 90 days to be charged. The lack of progress on this front was blamed for the failure to reduce the average length of detention further than it fell, from 291 days in 2023 to 218 days in 2025. While that was a “significant” improvement, the report said, “the average still far exceeds state and national standards,” which are closer to 100 days.

The County was encouraged to continue progress in providing reliable data to two agencies making decisions affecting FCJ population: the Justice Policy Board, “which focuses on expanding and strengthening alternatives to arrest and incarceration”; and the Jail Population Review Committee, “which reviews jail population trends and conducts case reviews.” But more progress could be made, tracking metrics from the courts, the jail, the PAD and CDS, the report concluded. See: Jail Overcrowding in Fulton County: Causes, Impacts, and Interventions, ACLU (Jan. 2026).  

Additional source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution

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