Two years ago, Mayor Bottoms publicly announced her intentions of closing the Atlanta City Detention Center.
Since then, the city has hired an Oakland-based architecture firm to deliver a comprehensive plan to transform the jail into a center for community services, which they submitted last June. However, as of today, the jail remains open.
In 2018, Bottoms signed legislation to eliminate cash bail for nonviolent arrests. This meant that people would no longer be held at ACDC before trial, simply because they couldn’t afford bail. That same year, the mayor also ended Atlanta's relationship with ICE, refusing to accept any more ICE detainees into the ACDC.
Because of these moves, the Atlanta city jail's population has dwindled down to less than 50 inmates per night. However, just down the road at the Fulton County Jail, Sheriff Patrick Labat is still battling the same overcrowding issues his facility has faced for well over a decade.
Sheriff Labat has asked the mayor to temporarily lease him 500 beds at the ACDC to help alleviate the overcrowding. However, Bottoms hasn’t been willing to give him that many beds.
"It’s not the best use of taxpayer money, and there’s so much more we need in our communities," Bottoms told 11Alive. "We need a place where people can have 24-hour day care. We need a place where someone can walk in and get drug counseling and support services, where they can get their GED and vocational training. There’s an opportunity to transform the jail into that place."
Five Atlanta mayoral candidates were asked whether they were for or against closing the city jail at a recent political forum. Kasim Reed, Andre Dickens, Felicia Moore, and Sharon Gay all said they were against closing the jail. Antonio Brown said he was for closing it, but added that we should use the ACDC to help low-level inmates at the Fulton County Jail re-adapt into society.