FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, Sept 1, 2026
Mayor Dickens’ Sale of the City Jail to Fulton County Could Expand Mass Incarceration to a 5,500-Bed Jail System
ATLANTA — Today, Communities Over Cages sent a letter to Mayor Andre Dickens, city councilmembers, and Fulton County Commissioners opposing the Mayor’s latest proposal to permanently sell the Atlanta City Detention Center to Fulton County for $68 million, warning that the deal could dramatically expand the county’s detention footprint while abandoning Atlanta’s commitment to close and repurpose the facility.
In 2022, Mayor Dickens described Fulton County’s use of ACDC as a temporary response to overcrowding and told an Atlanta City Council committee, “We are not in the jailing business. I do not want to be in the jailing business.” His August 31 counteroffer takes Atlanta in the opposite direction. It would sell ACDC to Fulton County for continued detention while requiring that space remain available for City detainees, intake, and administrative operations.
The proposal would come alongside Fulton County’s plan to renovate and continue operating the Rice Street Jail and build a new 1,800-bed Special Purpose Facility. With ACDC’s roughly 1,300-bed capacity and Rice Street’s capacity at 2,453 functional beds, the combined Atlanta-Fulton detention footprint could reach approximately 4,225 to 5,553 beds if all three facilities remain in detention use. This number does not include the bed space at the South Fulton and Marietta Annex, which could further expand the final jail bed capacity.
“Mayor Dickens promised to move Atlanta out of the jailing business. This proposal could instead help create one of the largest local detention footprints in the Southeast and ensure that mass incarceration a main theme of the Mayor’s legacy,” said Devin Barrington-Ward, an anchor-team member of Communities Over Cages Coalition and Managing Director of the Black Futurists Group. “The mayor’s plan does not close a jail. It changes the name on the deed while preserving and potentially expanding our local governments’ role in the plight of mass incarceration.”
The mayor’s letter claims that the transaction could save Fulton County taxpayers approximately $491 million. However, it does not require Fulton County to close a specific facility, eliminate a defined number of beds, reduce the proposed 1,800-bed facility, or adopt a binding jail-population target.
“The City cannot credibly claim that this deal reduces costs or incarceration while leaving Rice Street, ACDC, and a new detention facility on the table,” Barrington-Ward said. “The public deserves to know exactly which projects and beds would be eliminated, what it will cost to operate these facilities, and whether this agreement actually reduces incarceration or simply spreads it across more buildings.”
The coalition is also raising concerns that the mayor’s letter names Women on the Rise, the Southern Center for Human Rights, and the Legal Action Center as potential participants in annual facility assessments without documenting that the organizations were consulted or agreed to participate.
“The City should not borrow the credibility of our organizations that have fought jail expansion and preventable deaths to make this proposal appear to have the support of the community,” said Robyn Hasan-Simpson, Executive Director of Women on the Rise and anchor-team member of Communities Over Cages Coalition. “An annual assessment of the building is not a substitute for accountability around deaths in custody, medical neglect, use of force, mental-health care, court delays, diversion failures, or why so many people are jailed in the first place.”
Communities Over Cages is calling for:
- A binding commitment to reduce Fulton County’s incarcerated population to 1,000 people or fewer across all facilities.
- A no-net-increase requirement identifying which facilities and jail beds will permanently close before additional detention capacity is added.
- Public release of the full methodology behind the claimed $491 million in savings, including construction, staffing, healthcare, maintenance, and long-term operating costs.
- Removal of any community organization’s name from the proposal unless that organization has affirmatively agreed to participate.
- A transparent public process centered on formerly incarcerated people, families affected by jail deaths, and organizations that have worked for years to reduce incarceration.
“Atlanta and Fulton County should measure progress by how many people are safely diverted from jail—not by how many jail beds the government can acquire at a discount,” Barrington-Ward said.
About Communities Over Cages ATL
Communities Over Cages is a coalition of directly impacted people, community organizations, legal advocates, service providers, and policy leaders working to reduce incarceration, expand diversion and community-based responses, improve accountability, and advance the coalition’s Path to 1000 framework.
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Contact: Devin Barrington-Ward
770-595-8625 devin@blackfuturistsgroup.com
BlackFuturistsGroup.com