Meeting revives talk of Fulton running city jail

Plans for Fulton County to take over Atlanta’s jail resurfaced Thursday.

Attorneys involved in the ongoing effort to improve conditions inside the Fulton County Jail talked about a plan where the county would make an offer to the city to operate its jail, said Emmet Bondurant, an attorney who attended the meeting.

About 1,044 inmates are housed daily at the Atlanta jail —- two-thirds of them federal or Fulton County inmates, city auditors say.

Thursday’s meeting was held in the offices of Senior U.S. District Court Judge Marvin Shoob, who is overseeing a federal court order to improve the jail. He declined comment on the meeting.

The city jail opened in 1995 and has 1,314 beds. Shoob ruled in 2006 that the inmate population at the county jail should be capped at 2,250 people. Bondurant said the jail was designed to house 1,300 inmates.

Bondurant said the discussions included asking the American Correctional Association to look into the feasibility of Fulton operating the city jail.

“This appears to be a serendipitous opportunity,” said Bondurant, former chairman of a commission that pushed for the idea four years ago. “[The city] has a facility too large for its own needs and the [county] has a facility that is too small.”

Greg Giornelli, the city’s chief operating officer, said Atlanta is willing to listen to any county proposals.

“We are considering all options related to the city jail,” he said Thursday. “However, a deal with Fulton County is particularly compelling on a number of levels.”

City officials were reluctant to consider the idea in 2005 and 2006, but the concept is more compelling now, for several reasons. Atlanta, like most big cities, is suffering financially and its corrections department budget is $38.5 million. A recent internal audit of that department found it overspent its corrections budget six of the past seven years.

Fulton County Manager Zachary Williams said none of the county commissioners have shown much interest in buying the city jail. Fulton spends about $10 million a year leasing space for some of their inmates from the city and other facilities, Williams said. The county pays the city $68 a day for each inmate it guards.

Bondurant said there were no detailed discussions concerning how much the county could offer for the Atlanta facility or what would happen to the city corrections officers guarding the inmates. He said the talks did include setting aside some space for city inmates.

Bondurant believes the city jail would be advantageous to Fulton because it is located in downtown Atlanta, less than a mile from the city’s Municipal Court and the Fulton County Courthouse.

The Fulton County Jail is in northwest Atlanta, four miles away from those courts.