Mayor Andre Dickens announced a $68 million deal to sell the Atlanta City Detention Center to Fulton County after weeks of active negotiation.
The sale stands to free up space at Fulton County’s main jail on Rice Street, which is overcrowded and understaffed. The county had been leasing space at the city detention center, but the agreement was set to expire at the end of the year.
During negotiations, Dickens made the sale of ACDC contingent upon Fulton County’s participation in the City’s extension of tax allocation districts (TAD), a diversion of tax dollars used to boost an area’s economy, transportation, and healthcare.
The Fulton County Commission voted in July to block the diversion of property tax revenue away from countywide services into the TADs, which are set to expire in 2031. Without Fulton County’s participation, the city would be solely relying on Atlanta Public Schools to favorably extend the TADs.
Dickens also wanted the county to contribute $200 million to building a new hospital on Metropolitan Parkway in southwest Atlanta. The county refused, and the contribution was ultimately dropped from the deal.
One exchange during the jail negotiation said Fulton County Commission has been trying to purchase the detention center for the last 17 years “to improve public safety and to address the need for adequate detention space” but the City has resisted.
Fulton County Commission Chair Robb Pitts said the county is looking forward to completing the deal as soon as possible.
“Fulton County remains committed to humane treatment of detainees. We are equally committed to diversion programs and mental health services to help people in our communities avoid incarceration,” Pitts said.
At the Sept. 8 Atlanta City Council meeting, members of the public spoke out against the sale of the city jail.
Play Fair ATL Director Michael Collins said organizers “always knew that increasing the jail population, building a new jail, and increasing space was never going to be the solution.”
“We’re getting in the jail business not just with Fulton County, but with Sheriff Patrick Labat, who has overseen a lot of death and destruction, who has been an individual responsible for a lot of corruption,” Collins claimed.
Labat has been under scrutiny for medical neglect and the deaths of prisoners at Rice Street, which is under a federal consent decree. Drugs and cell phones were discovered at the jail in 2025 after a perimeter breach.
Tiffany Roberts, public policy director at Southern Center for Human Rights, said women are being mistreated at both facilities. She said the county is disregarding the requirement to track mental health services for women, some of whom are not receiving the proper amount of time outside their cells.
“It needs to be really clear that you are not saving one life by selling this jail, not one. And if we don’t check the sheriff, if someone doesn’t name him and name his conduct as we are discussing this sale, the deaths for which he has not apologized that have happened during the term of this lease will continue,” Roberts said.
Hayden Sumlin contributed to this report.
