PAD opposes Atlanta-Fulton jail deal, calls for further investment in pre-arrest diversion

“We exist because community members have been asking for years that the city change course from a culture of punishment and an assumption that jail is a place where people should be disappeared to if they are poor, or they are suffering in public. When it comes to the decisions that our city and our county make about how to address the fact that so many people who fit that bill are languishing in our jails — we are squarely in the middle of the conversation, whether we like it or not,” Macias said. “We are making changes [to] how our city responds to these really difficult challenges, and we are just begging those partners that we have been working with for years at the city and the county to stay the course.”