By taking a justice system approach that the state is about to try, Fulton County could be freed in the next year from federal oversight of its jail and the threat of having to build a new one.
With the county's courts system working faster and steering inmates to alternative programs, the daily inmate population has been so reduced that Senior U.S. District Judge Marvin Shoob, who has been involved in a legal fight over the jail since 2004, said he might lift federal oversight within the next year. Still, skeptics warn that it's too early to tell if the turnaround will stick.
Shoob told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution he probably won't require the county to build a new jail, estimated to cost $150 million to $250 million. The savings could be colossal for taxpayers, who have already spent more than $50 million since 2006 paying other jurisdictions to house Fulton inmates to meet a court-ordered cap.
Taxpayers might still have to spend tens of millions more dollars before all the problems are corrected, but Fulton's decreasing jail population also could be a bellwether for sentencing reforms about to sweep the state.
With House Bill 1176 awaiting Gov. Nathan Deal's signature, Georgia is embarking on a drastically different approach to crime and punishment, steering nonviolent drug and property offenders to such alternatives as drug courts and substance abuse centers instead of costly prison cells.
"People didn't realize how much money was being spent incarcerating people," said Shoob, a longtime reform advocate who is overseeing Fulton's compliance with a 2006 federal consent order. It was put in place because of filthy, dangerous and overcrowded jail conditions.
"It's a lot cheaper just to let them out, let them report, and have supervised release," the judge said. "Only bad people ought to be in jail."
Georgia spends more than $1 billion on its prison system, and the changes are projected to save $264 million in state corrections spending over the next five years.
The philosophy appears to be making a difference in Fulton.
At Shoob's urging, the county ramped up efforts last year to move inmates through the system quicker and steer more of them to drug and DUI courts. Fulton has already shaved its outsourcing budget by $2 million this year. The annual tab for outsourcing peaked at $12.3 million in 2008, but it was $5.1 million in 2011 and has been less than $1 million so far in 2012.
Fulton's criminal justice system accounts for about 38 percent of county spending. The Sheriff's Office has a $97.1 million budget this year, $68.1 million of which is to run the jail.
Baltimore jail expert Calvin Lightfoot, who serves as Shoob's court monitor, said Fulton has more to do than reduce inmate numbers. And the chief jailer said this year might be too soon to shake off oversight.
One advantage of the order, Chief Jailer Mark Adger said, is it requires the state Department of Corrections to give first priority to removing sentenced inmates from the Fulton jail. Without that, the population could skyrocket, he said.
The prospect also concerns Melanie Velez, a lawyer for the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, which represents inmates in the lawsuit that led to the order.
"We'd like to not be back in federal court," she said.
To comply with the order, Fulton has already spent $60 million on mechanical, electrical and plumbing upgrades.
The jail still lacks a comprehensive mass evacuation plan, though, and there aren't enough officers to adequately staff all the cellblocks, Lightfoot said.
Most glaringly, the cell doors have minimum-security locks that many inmates know how to pick. Upgrading them will cost an estimated $7 million to $8 million.
Adger said staffing could be the biggest obstacle. Stress and low pay mean high turnover, and with all the training required, it takes months to fill vacancies.
While the county may no longer need a new jail to house 5,000 inmates by 2026 — an old projection that's being updated — it will still take more beds to end outsourcing. New plans call for adding space for 400 at the current site, which could cost $30 million to $50 million, Adger said. A timetable hasn't been determined.
The chief jailer said it's too early to say exactly what's causing the numbers to fall, though a faster-moving courts system is clearly contributing.
"We can't stop doing what we're doing," he said. "We've got to keep paddling."
Other efforts are under way to keep chronic offenders from recycling through the jail over and over again. A pilot program spearheaded by Fulton Commission Chairman John Eaves is using a $750,000 federal grant in hopes that repeat, nonviolent offenders can be persuaded to change their behavior, then be released under heavy supervision.
The jail also has an in-house therapeutic program, which spends no additional funds, designed to steer addicts and alcoholics to 12-step programs.
It's a new way of dealing with inmates such as Acia Axam, a 22-year-old alcoholic who has been locked up in the Fulton jail at least six times. He's been there since October 2009 on aggravated assault, aggravated battery and party to a gang crime charges, the result of a drunken brawl in an apartment complex that ended with a stabbing.
"I want to get sober," said Axam, who is still awaiting sentencing, "and if I can't get sober, I might as well just stay here."
Shoob has the Rice Street jail population capped at 2,500 inmates. The total population, including outsourced inmates, has been below that cap since late last year.
In late March, there were 2,357 inmates in Fulton's system, a 22 percent drop since the same point in 2011.
With metro area crime rates down, other county jails in the region also have seen inmate numbers drop over the past year, but not as dramatically as in Fulton. Since March 2011, DeKalb's jail population dropped 4.6 percent to 3,037. Cobb's population fell 6.8 percent to 2,204.
The Gwinnett jail's population went up 0.6 percent, to 2,635.
Last year, Shoob told Fulton commissioners he would lock them up for contempt if they didn't get serious about fixing chronic jail overcrowding.
While Shoob said he thinks he got Fulton's attention, Eaves downplayed a connection to the judge's threat, which had to do with his belief at the time that Fulton should buy Atlanta's jail. Eaves said the county has been making efforts to reduce the population for years.
He said he'll lead a push to have Fulton released from the federal order sometime this fall.
"I think people are beginning to understand," Eaves said, "that the lock-them-up mentality is not the solution."
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