If not for rented space in other jails, Fulton would be trying to hold 2,524 inmates in a jail with a cap of 2,250. On Sunday, for example, there were 407 inmates in three local jails, including 272 in the Hall County Jail. Another 90 inmates were out for court appearances in other counties, and two inmates are in the DeKalb County Jail because a judge has ordered them separated from others.

“We still have to outsource some,” said new jail administrator Dennis Nelson, who has been on the job for a little more than a week. “We’re trying to work with police and the DA [prosecutors] with alternatives to incarceration.”

What Fulton taxpayers got for their $59 million is hard to see as the improvements are to the electrical and plumbing systems inside the walls and the ceilings, and to the heating and air conditioning systems.

The floors are waxed and shiny, but the walls are still dingy and marred. Metal plates have been crudely welded over cell doors to block access to locks that can be damaged or picked, a problem that has allowed some inmates to get out of their cells or into the cells of others.

“We need extra cameras,” Nelson said, noting that only one looks down on a still-empty cell block on the jail's fifth floor in the south tower.

Nelson said he expected to begin filling the remaining 200 beds this week, but there still will be inmates housed outside the county because there is no room in Fulton.

Lawyers from the Southern Center for Human Rights, which filed the federal lawsuit for the inmates, continue to meet with the sheriff and the court monitor about jail conditions .

"We are keeping on eye on the jail population," said Sara Totonchi, executive director for the Southern Center.

Crowding has been a constant problem. The jail expert monitoring compliance with a federal consent order U.S. District Judge Marvin Shoob signed in early 2006 reported after his most recent inspection that “the Sheriff is acutely aware that his department lacks unilateral control over the population of the Fulton County Jail. Rather, Fulton County’s judicial system is additionally responsible for population shifts at the jail.”

In December, Fulton Chief Judge Doris Downs said she and prosecutors had a plan to move cases that would cut the jail population to 1,200 inmates by July, a promise that has some skeptics.

It would be done by increasing efficiencies, moving cases faster and using retired judges and a “temporary emergency court” to eliminate the case backlog.

But prosecutors have just as much impact over moving cases as do the judges. If cases aren't ready or if plea negotiations are pending, cases keep getting pushed back even though the defendants are in jail.

“The concept is good. The theory is sound. But the practicality is a little short,” Fulton Commission Chairman John Eaves said when Downs proposed her plan to avoid significant budget cuts.

Fulton has the state’s largest judicial system and one of the slowest with cases sometimes taking years to get to trial. The cost of holding a defendant in the Fulton jail is $72 a day, while the per diem for outsourced inmates ranges from $35 to $55.

“The county prefers to outsource [inmates], but the [federal] judge is not going to allow that," Jackson said.

Shoob has on a few occasions threatened to hold Fulton’s commissioners in contempt of court if they did not provide enough money to run the jail. And late last year, the federal judge sharply criticized the sheriff for outsourcing so many inmates and ordered him to report his plan for cutting the county’s dependence on jail beds in other cities and counties.

“For years, the number of inmates has exceeded the number of available beds at the Rice Street [jail] facility,” Shoob wrote. “Rather than addressing this problem head-on, the sheriff has opted to spend millions of dollars housing inmates at other jails.”

Jackson wrote more than a month ago that the county was negotiating with Atlanta to buy the municipal jail, but those negotiations are " in limbo,” Jackson said.