Monitor visits jails in Georgia’s Fulton County and finds safety risks due to understaffing

ATLANTA (AP) — An independent monitor appointed to oversee an agreement meant to address dangerous and unhealthy jail conditions in Georgia’s most populous county said significant understaffing creates “serious safety risks for residents and staff.”

Kathleen Kenney was appointed in February to monitor the consent decree between the U.S. Department of Justice, Fulton County and county Sheriff Pat Labat. Her initial report filed Thursday provides an overview of her team’s baseline visit to the main jail and annexes in May and makes recommendations for the next six months.

The court-enforceable agreement was announced in January after a Justice Department civil rights investigation found that jail officials failed to protect detainees from violence, used excessive force and held people in “unconstitutional and illegal conditions.”

The monitor’s recommendations for the next six months include focusing on the resident classification and housing system, increasing staffing and supervision, ensuring that heating and air conditioning is working and fire suppression and alert systems are adequate, and improving suicide prevention measures.

A sheriff’s spokesperson said Friday the office isn’t able to comment on the 40-page report yet, having received it late Thursday afternoon.

A staffing crisis

The “single biggest takeaway” from the monitoring team’s initial visit was a staffing crisis, the report says. Most floors in the main jail in Atlanta were staffed by only one deputy or detention officer, responsible for about 200 residents across six separate housing areas. Security towers were often vacant, “exacerbating safety risks to the staff and incarcerated population.”

For the 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. shift, about 50% of the posts in the main jail housing units and 55% in the annexes were vacant. Vacancies were higher for the 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift, at 58% in the main jail, 59% in the annexes. Support operations such as intake, classification, food service and laundry were even more thinly staffed.

The report notes that jails and prisons around the country are grappling with significant staffing shortages, and that the sheriff’s office acknowledged its salary and benefits package isn’t competitive.

During the monitoring team’s visit to the 1,900-bed capacity main jail, a total of 1,838 people were being held there. Because of environmental or maintenance issues, 731 beds were unavailable. Some of these were part of a “blitz,” surging resources area by area to make repairs. Good idea, the report says, but without more staff, the jail residents destroy the things that have just been repaired.

“Unsupervised, idle residents will continue destroying the facilities until staff are able to adequately supervise them,” the report says.

Overcrowded intake and security issues

The intake area includes three separate holding tanks where most people were packed in “so tightly that they could not sit or lie down” and many people had “been held in these inhumane conditions for five to seven days.” The sheriff’s office recognized the problems but “failed to take appropriate action and treat the situation with the urgency required,” the report says.

The lack of adequate supervision also means that doors that don’t lock and windows that can be breached give residents routine access to weapons, and drones are used to fly in drugs, weapons and other contraband, “virtually unabated and undetected.”

Overall, the main jail is “in an unacceptable condition and inadequately staffed,” the report concluded. Similar problems to varying degrees were observed at the annexes.

A bright spot monitors observed was the mental health competency restoration unit, a collaboration with Emory University School of Medicine. It treats only a small number of people with serious mental illnesses, but “is promising and appears to be functioning according to standard correctional practices.”

What the staff and residents say

In conversations with the monitoring team, jail staff said they don’t feel safe and are concerned about environmental conditions. They said they don’t feel supported and fear firing or public humiliation if they make mistakes.

Jail residents told the monitoring team they also don’t feel safe, with some mentioning weapon and gang issues inside the jail. They said staff do not seem to care, and conduct rounds infrequently because of understaffing. The food is bad and there’s not enough of it, and sinks, showers and toilets often don’t work, they said.

The team also noted that the jails’ strategies for classification, restricted housing and population management don’t align with common practices. Emergency medical response procedures are unclear, equipment is lacking and residents on suicide watch aren’t consistently put in safe cells or monitored frequently enough.

Plans for the future

At a meeting Wednesday, the Fulton County Board of Commissioners were presented with several options for the future of the jail. They voted to continue studying a nine-year, $1.2 billion option that includes building a new special purpose facility with about 1,800 beds and then renovating the existing main jail.

The sheriff, who has long advocated for a completely new jail, blasted the vote, saying it fails to address very immediate problems.

“The vote is a political game of smoke and mirrors that flies in the face of the federal consent decree,” Labat said in an emailed statement.