ACLU report raises new concerns over overcrowding at Fulton County Jail after major flooding
A new report released Tuesday morning is renewing scrutiny on conditions inside the Fulton County Jail, just days after a massive pipe burst flooded parts of the aging facility with more than 70,000 gallons of water.
The report, prepared by the ACLU of Georgia and the advocacy group Community Over Cages, is set to be presented at a 10 a.m. news conference outside the jail. Advocates say overcrowding is at the center of many of the jail's ongoing problems, from maintenance failures to safety concerns, and argue that recent flooding highlights deeper, long-standing issues.
The jail is still drying out after the water main break over the weekend, which forced parts of the facility offline and added to growing concerns about infrastructure failures inside the building. Video from the scene shows standing water and damage in areas that house inmates.
The report examines jail data from 2022 and 2023 and outlines what advocates describe as systemic drivers of overcrowding, including the jailing of people accused of low-level misdemeanors, delayed indictments, and the underuse of diversion programs that could keep people out of custody altogether. It also offers evidence-based recommendations aimed at reducing the jail population and improving conditions.
Shruti Lakshmanan, a policy advocate with the ACLU of Georgia, said chronic understaffing has worsened conditions and made it harder to address basic maintenance needs.
"What we see is that because of the chronic understaffing, there are maintenance requests that go unresolved," Lakshmanan said. "What we saw over the weekend is a direct result of that."
Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat agreed that the building itself is a major part of the problem, pointing to the jail's age and design.
"I asked the question, why did the Fulton County Board of Commissioners redo the 10th floor at the cost of $10 million, yet we still have pipes that continue to leak in an aged building that was not meant to hold as many people as we do," Labat said.
Labat said a feasibility study was conducted to address long-term fixes at the jail, but he said county commissioners did not approve the recommendations.
In a statement released Monday, Commissioner Mo Ivory called the flooding a "wake-up call" and said the pipe burst was not an isolated incident but part of a pattern of infrastructure failure.
"This is the predictable result of a building that is past its useful life and cannot reliably support basic operations," Ivory said.
Ivory mentioned that a similar pipe failure last summer caused more than $1 million in damage and said recent site visits have confirmed that these breakdowns are recurring and structural, not accidental.
The Fulton County Jail has been under a federal consent decree since January 2025, after the U.S. Department of Justice determined that conditions inside were unconstitutional and uninhabitable. Fulton County previously operated under a separate consent decree beginning in 2005.
While the sheriff oversees daily operations, Ivory emphasized that the county is responsible for the physical structure of the jail and has a legal obligation to ensure it is safe and humane.
"People are being housed in a facility that cannot reliably provide basic conditions, and that is unacceptable," she said.
Federal monitors have repeatedly flagged staffing shortages at the jail. An independent monitor last year found that some housing units were staffed by a single deputy overseeing nearly 200 inmates across multiple areas. Security towers were often left vacant, and more than half of the assigned posts were empty during some shifts.
A 2024 Justice Department investigation described the jail as hazardous and unsanitary, citing flooding from broken plumbing, infestations of rodents and insects, filthy cells, and exposed wiring. Investigators also documented more than 1,000 assaults and more than 300 stabbings in 2023, many of which were underreported.
County leaders remain divided over how to move forward. In August, commissioners voted 4-1 to continue studying a nine-year, $1.2 billion plan that would include building a new special-purpose facility and later renovating the existing jail. Ivory was the lone dissenting vote, arguing that continued repairs combined with partial new construction are nearing the cost of building a completely new jail.
"At some point, we have to be honest about what we are planning to do," Ivory said. "Continuing to plan for repeated repairs alongside partial new construction is not fiscally responsible, and it does not meet our legal or moral obligations. Planning for a new jail is not optional. It is necessary."
Sheriff Labat has long pushed for a new facility, while County Commission Chairman Robb Pitts has said a fully new jail may not be affordable.