FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: July 31, 2026
Contact: Joe Watson, joe@heyjoemedia.com | 602.383.4155
Dickens Pulls ACDC Offer, Confirms Jail Was Just a Bargaining Chip
Mayor Ties $80M Detention Center Deal to Unrelated Tax Fight, Proving Warnings from Community Over Cages Coalition Were Right
ATLANTA — The Communities Over Cages (COC) Coalition strongly condemns Mayor Andre Dickens’ attempt to use the suffering of incarcerated people and their families as leverage in his effort to pressure Fulton County into supporting his Tax Allocation District (TAD) extension and Neighborhood Reinvestment Initiative proposals.
We release the following statement from Robyn Hasan-Simpson, Executive Director of Women on the Rise, on behalf of the COC Coalition:
“Mayor Dickens just proved us right. He offered Fulton County $80 million for the Atlanta City Detention Center, then pulled the offer the moment commissioners said no to his tax plan. That’s not a plan to end a humane housing crisis. That’s a bargaining chip, and now everyone can see it.
The federal consent decree he now cites to make his case for TAD didn’t happen because of him. It happened because our coalition refused to stay quiet and took our concerns to the Department of Justice. Since then, the Southern Center for Human Rights ran The People’s Process to gather community input on this crisis, and City Council members, state legislators, and federal Senate staff showed up, while nobody from the Dickens administration participated. Our coalition published Path to 1,000 last year, a policy report on how to safely decarcerate and end this crisis. County officials have taken some of it seriously. The mayor hasn’t, and he keeps attacking programs like PAD that actually reduce arrests.
For four years, families have buried people who died in Fulton County’s custody. For four years, we’ve asked this administration for accountability and partnership, and received almost none. Now that Dickens needs something from the county, he’s using that suffering to get it. Incarcerated people are not pawns. Their families are not leverage. Their pain is not a negotiating tactic. Our coalition will keep pushing to reduce incarceration, invest in real alternatives, and center the families this crisis has hit hardest.
We’re calling on Mayor Dickens to make that withdrawal permanent and stop using ACDC as a bargaining chip. He should sit down with the people who’ve done this work from the beginning, and keep his promise to turn the facility into a center for healing and community investment, not continued jail use.”
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For questions, contact:
Joe Watson – joe@heyjoemedia.com | 602-383-4155
Wendy Tremayne – wendy@heyjoemedia.com | 917-991-3309