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Jail visitors center nears completion

More beds: The $110 million expansion will add more than 1,100 beds to the facility, which has exceeded its rated capacity by 126 percent.

By Kent A. Miles
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Friday, December 26, 2008

Completion of the expansion of the Cobb County Adult Detention Center is still about a year away, but in less than three months there will be a change in venue for visitors.

A high-tech visitors center at the entrance to the jail complex on County Services Road is nearing completion. Construction continues on the new housing unit that will add more than 1,100 beds to the pretrial detention center for men and women.

The $110 million jail expansion is the second major addition in over a decade and the third since 1982. Previous expansions had been financed with bonds. This expansion is being financed by an increase in the county’s sales tax that was approved by voters in 2005.

Once finished, it will add 320,000 square feet to a jail that is among the most chronically overcrowded in metro Atlanta.

The jail capacity has been 1,925 beds for the past five years; last month, there were 2,432 inmates in the jail, 126 percent above capacity, according to the state Department of Community Affairs, which monitors jail populations. About 10 percent of the inmates are women. On average, prisoners are in county custody 26 days.

Kiosk conferences

The new visitors center, at the entrance to the jail campus, is expected to be open by February or March.

Interaction among prisoners and family members and attorneys will take place there, rather than where prisoners are housed.

The center has more than a dozen video conferencing kiosks, where prisoners can speak with family members.

Other kiosks are set aside in private rooms for attorneys and prisoners to discuss cases.

Col. Don Bartlett of the county sheriff’s department said the visitors center makes it easier on families, since it is outside the security perimeter of the jail.

More beds

The new housing unit will increase the number of holding cells, eliminating the need for beds to be placed in day rooms to accommodate prisoners.

Inmates currently are housed in dormitory-style rooms and sleep on bunk-style beds. The housing tower will be a combination of single- and double-bunked metal holding cells.

Bartlett said all the beds in the jail facilities, including the work release unit, have been utilized to handle the jail population during the present construction and renovation.

The ICE effect

Cobb County began checking the immigration status of people arrested on local charges a year ago, becoming the first county in Georgia to assist in the enforcement of federal immigration laws. As of October, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency picked up some 3,500 prisoners arrested in Cobb County who were determined to be in the country illegally.

Cobb County Sheriff Neil Warren says the county’s immigration enforcement effort, which critics have said mostly targets Latinos, has not factored into an increase in the county jail population. Most prisoners are in county custody an average of 72 hours before they are picked up by ICE agents.

“I really couldn’t say that this was responsible for an increase in the population,â€