Georgia lawmakers say the top solution to jail problems is for officials to work together

ATLANTA (AP) — A Georgia Senate committee says more cooperation among county officials would improve conditions in Fulton County’s jail, but it also called on the city of Atlanta to hand over all of its former jail to the county to house prisoners.

The committee was formed last year to examine conditions in the jail after an already overcrowded population soared and a string of inmate deaths drew an unwanted spotlight. The U.S. Department of Justice opened a civil rights investigation last year over longstanding problems.

The Justice Department cited violence, filthy conditions and the September 2022 death of Lashawn Thompson, one of dozens of people who has died in county custody during the past few years. Thompson, 35, died in a bedbug-infested cell in the jail’s psychiatric wing.

In August 2023, former President Donald Trump went to the Fulton County Jail to be booked and to sit for the first-ever mug shot of a former president after he was indicted on charges related to efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia.

The number of inmates locked in the main jail has fallen from nearly 2,600 a year ago to just over 1,600 today, although the county’s overall jail population has fallen by less, as it now houses about 400 prisoners a day in part of the Atlanta City Detention Center.

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