Justice Dept. Reaches Deal to Monitor Troubled Atlanta Jail

The Justice Department has struck a deal with officials in Fulton County, Georgia, to appoint a monitor to try to ensure its troubled jail addresses long-running problems with safety, staffing and sanitation.

The tentative agreement, which was announced Friday, must still be approved by a federal judge. It is the result of findings issued in November by civil rights lawyers in the department, who described “atrocious” conditions, including frequent infestations of lice, cockroaches and rodents, and free-flowing contraband like drugs and weapons.

The proposed agreement is part of the Justice Department’s push to quickly wrap up a host of civil rights investigations into local police and law enforcement agencies in the waning days of the Biden administration.

Historically, Democratic administrations have pursued such cases more aggressively than Republican ones. In 2017, the first Trump administration walked back a number of such cases, and the incoming Trump administration is expected to do much the same.

The department opened its investigation into the Fulton County Jail in July 2023, although change was not immediately apparent. Within weeks, six Black men died; one person was found unconscious because his cellmate had strangled him; and five units experienced a wave of violent assaults leading to stabbings, one of which resulted in death, according to the report.

Under the proposed deal, known as a consent decree, the jail will develop plans to keep people safe from violence, improve supervision and staffing, maintain working doors and locks, and establish a comprehensive proposal to keep the jail “clean, sanitary and free of pests.”

Attorney General Merrick B. Garland called the consent decree “a critical step toward correcting the dangerous and dehumanizing conditions that have persisted in the Fulton County Jail for far too long.”

The federal government has tried before to fix the jail’s problems. The Fulton County Jail complex, which includes four buildings, was under federal supervision from 2006 to 2015, largely for the very problems identified in the report.

Under the new proposed agreement, an independent monitor would assess the jail’s performance in following the requirements in the consent decree, and issue public reports every six months.

The Fulton County Sheriff’s Office, which runs the jail, said the problems identified by the Justice Department ”have been decades in the making and are well known.”

Sheriff Patrick Labat called the consent order “a road map to a better future for our facility, staff and the individuals entrusted to our care,” adding that it would lead to “long-lasting change.”

Those held at the jail are disproportionately Black compared with the overall population of the county. A majority also struggle with mental health, often languishing behind bars. In addition, the jail does not provide sufficient food, leaving many malnourished.

The Justice Department investigation found the jail complex had 314 stabbings and about 1,000 assaults in 2023 alone — significantly more than some other metro jail systems.