FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — A group of local activists plan to stage a protest against a proposal to move inmates from the Fulton County jail to private prisons.
County commissioners could vote on moving the inmates due to overcrowding and poor conditions at the jail. The meeting starts at 10 a.m. Wednesday with the protestors planning to gather outside to call on commissioners to block the move.
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The Fulton County Board of Commissioners heard last month from Fulton Sheriff Pat Labat, who requested funding to send up to 1,000 inmates to private prisons in south Georgia and Mississippi.
He told commissioners that the private facilities would provide mental healthcare and programs that inmates don’t receive in Fulton County.
Channel 2′s Michael Seiden attended the meeting, which got heated between Labat and the commissioners. Commissioner Bob Ellis called Labat’s request an “abuse of power.”
“This is about the third time the sheriff’s office has come down here not giving us information ahead of time to ask us for a boatload of money with limited detail and create a staged presentation associated with it. That’s an abuse of power,” Vice Chairman Ellis said.
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The sheriff said the move would relieve overcrowding at the jail.
“I have done nothing day one from day one trying to improve the conditions in the Fulton County jail and the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office as a whole.”
A group of local activists want commissioners to vote against moving the inmates.
“It is going to create a barrier and a difficult situation for people who are incarcerated and those who are representing them,” Devin Barrington-Ward said.
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