OUR DEMANDS!!
OUR DEMANDS!!
Our Campaign to Close Fulton County Jail is borne out of the inhumane conditions facing people detained there. As one of the deadliest jails in the country, our demands are to:
Release those currently suffering in Fulton County Jail.
Provide justice for those who have died from and those who are survivors of inhumane conditions at the jail, including giving monetary compensation and holding guilty parties accountable.
Stop any funds to expand the current jail or build new jail facilities.
southern center for human rights report
The people’s process final report (04.2025)
In light of the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) report regarding the inhumane practices and conditions inside Fulton County Jail, from December 2024 to April 2025, the Southern Center for Human Rights organized multiple community assemblies aimed at gathering live data from different participants regarding their experiences with Fulton County Jail.
The human rights violations in Fulton County identified by the DOJ include, but are not limited to:
Inadequate protection for incarcerated people from serious harm, including violence and stabbings by other incarcerated people.
Unjustified use of force by officers against incarcerated individuals.
Living conditions that fall below constitutional standards, largely due to staff negligence.
Medical and mental healthcare that fails to meet constitutional standards due to mismanagement and neglect.
Restrictive housing conditions that significantly increase the risk of harm, acute mental illness, and self-injury, particularly for incarcerated youth
Excerpts from the report
U.S. Department of Justice, 2024, p. 37
“Jail officers use force on people experiencing mental health crises without first involving mental health staff or attempting to de-escalate. In September 2023, an officer punched and OC sprayed a 17-year-old boy during a struggle that followed the officer’s removal of a zipper from the boy’s uniform. The boy had a recent history of using zippers to cut himself, but the incident report recounts no attempt to summon mental health staff or otherwise de-escalate before the officer ripped the zipper off by force. Jail officers also tased a man with serious mental illness and a known seizure disorder five times in a year, including three times in August 2023. We obtained video of two of the Taser uses, and both involved the unnecessary and disproportionate use of force. In March 2023, officers tased an incarcerated man who said he felt like hurting himself and needed to see mental health. Rather than taking the man to mental health, the officers tried to make him return to his housing zone; a sergeant tased the man when he held onto a bench to avoid being forced back into the housing zone”
U.S. Department of Justice, 2024, p. 20
Violence occurs as a direct result of the understaffing.
In August 2023, a single detention officer was assigned to monitor a housing unit of nearly 100 incarcerated people overnight. He left the unit to get ice.
Upon returning at about 1:00 a.m., he saw three incarcerated people fighting in the dayroom; two were “drenched in blood.” One person involved in the fight told officers that he saw one of the other people trying to leave the cell or zone, and “took it upon himself to stop [him].”
Similarly, the September 2022 homicide occurred when the floor officer left his assigned unit of around 100 incarcerated people to deliver paperwork and exchange his Taser cartridge. While he was gone, incarcerated people alerted the tower officer that someone was “laid out on the floor.”
The tower officer called the floor officer assigned to another unit to respond. When that officer arrived, the victim was face down in a puddle of blood with no signs of movement
