Jail Population Review Committee

In August 2022, Atlanta City Council authorized the expansion of Fulton County jail through a lease at the Atlanta City Detention Center. An amendment to the legislation required a jail population review study prior to authorizing the lease. The Jail Population Review Committee – a subset of the Justice Policy Board - was created and tasked with producing the required report by a November 18th deadline.

The Jail Population Review Committee reviewed the population trends over the last five years, as well as a one-day snapshot of the entire jail population. In addition to reviewing all 3,218 people who were incarcerated on September 14, the Committee did an in-depth case review of 250 of these individuals.

This analysis shows that the jail population has been steadily rising over the last five years and that many procedural and policy factors have driven the current overcrowding crisis. It also shows that there are several subsets of the jail population that warrant further review and problem-solving to effectively reduce overcrowding:

• A significant number of people are in jail for charges that are commonly associated with behavioral health needs or extreme poverty that are eligible for diversion to PAD.

  • In 2022, 3,462 people were jailed in Fulton County for charges that were eligible for diversion.

• People remain in jail waiting for their court date because they are too poor to afford bail – while a wealthier person with the same charges would be released.

  • In the in-depth case review, at least 75 individuals (30%) were in custody due to inability to make a bond of $15,000 or less. One individual had spent nearly 500 days in jail because he was unable to pay bond. At the time of the analysis, he remained unindicted, and no bond reduction had been considered.

• Many people currently incarcerated are “Familiar Faces” - defined as people who have been "booked three or more times within 24 months for non-violent offenses, who do not have violent offenses in their booking history in Fulton County, and who have a mental health screen score of 5 or greater."

  • In the previous 24 months, 3,939 individuals designated as Familiar Faces contributed to 9,107 bookings.

  • In 2022, the average length of incarceration for Familiar Faces was 143 days – or an average of 20 weeks.

• Almost 40% of all jail bookings (4,886 people) in 2022 were for people charged with misdemeanors as their most serious charge.

  • Since 2018, 35,502 people have been booked in Fulton County for misdemeanors as the most serious charge, or 38% of all bookings in Fulton County.

• Many people with acute housing, substance use, mental health or social service needs remain in jail because those services have not been identified or initiated.  

  • The in-depth case review found that 35% of reviewed cases had acute housing or mental health needs that delayed their release, such as someone has been court ordered to provide an address before being released, a nearly impossible barrier for someone who is unhoused and does not have an address. One person with a loitering misdemeanor as their most serious charge been in custody for over 310 days. The case has been reset for on the Competency Calendar more than 15 times.