ATLANTA – The Fulton County Jail needs a new building and more staff, shortcomings that could be solved with more funding, the chief counsel to the Fulton Sheriff’s Department told state lawmakers Thursday.
Overcrowding at the main Rice Street lockup has led to violence, including 293 stabbings this year, 922 inmate assaults of other inmates, 68 attacks by inmates on staff, and 10 deaths, two of which were homicides, Amelia Joyner testified during the first meeting of a state Senate subcommittee formed to look into problems at the Fulton jail.
Contributing to the violence are a large number of inmates who shouldn’t be in the Fulton jail because they have been convicted of violent crimes and belong in the state prison system, Joyner said.
“We house entirely too many individuals who are dangerous,” she said.
The Fulton Jail is attempting to cope with the overcrowded conditions while seriously understaffed. While the jail’s authorized strength is 1,017, its staff is down to 889, including 243 civilians, Joyner said. Despite a pay raise that brought the starting salary for sworn correctional officers to $60,000 a year, the jail staff’s turnover rate stood at 36.3% as of the end of last year, she said.
Joyner said the deteriorating jail building – including crumbling brick and mortar – is adding to the stress.
“The physical plant has been so dilapidated the inmates are able to create weapons,” she said.
Joyner said the sheriff’s department has taken steps to address overcrowding, including working with the court system on pre-trial diversion efforts. Fulton County also has entered agreements to house some of Fulton’s inmates at jails in three other counties and the city of Atlanta, she said.
Those efforts had reduced the jail population from a high of 3,700 to 2,915 as of Wednesday, Joyner said. Still, a few inmates are being forced to sleep on “portable sleeping devices” that are essentially legless cots.
Sen. Randy Robertson, R-Cataula, the subcommittee’s chairman, said none of the overcrowding problems are the sheriff’s department’s fault, since they can’t control how many inmates are brought to the facility.
Robertson suggested the subcommittee will have to look elsewhere for solutions, including to the court systems to reduce the average length of inmate stays at county jails.
Joyner said the average inmate stay at the Fulton jail has risen to 295 days, multiple times the length of time inmates should be expected to be housed at a county jail rather than in a state prison.
ATLANTA – The state agency in charge of Georgia’s foster-care system has responded to allegations of failure to protect children with a letter harshly critical of an investigation launched earlier this year by U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga.
“The misstatements, omissions and failure of the subcommittee to request relevant information or responses from the (Division of Family and Children Services) in advance of its publicized hearings and press conferences leave the unfortunate impression that the goals of this investigation are political,” several lawyers for the agency wrote Wednesday in a letter to Ossoff.
The Senate Human Rights Subcommittee, which Ossoff chairs, held two hearings last week and this week to hear testimony on the state agency’s treatment of foster children. At the first hearing, he unveiled a previously undisclosed internal audit that revealed the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) failed in 84% of cases brought its attention to address risks and safety concerns.
During the second hearing, two juvenile court judges said DFCS Director Candice Broce suggested some children with mental and behavioral problems be locked up in juvenile detention centers in violation of state law while the agency looked for somewhere to house them.
Ossoff also held a news conference during which he reported nearly 1,800 children in state custody were reported missing between 2018 and last year.
In their letter, the DFCS lawyers wrote that the subcommittee never shared with DFCS the information Ossoff obtained from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, leaving DFCS no way to respond.
“It is not clear whether the numbers the chairman shared with the press account for children who were recovered or children who aged out and refused to sign back into foster care (even though they were located),” the letter stated.
“What we do know is that a recent report by the inspector general for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found that Georgia’s rate of foster children reported missing is lower than its neighboring states of Tennessee, Alabama, and South Carolina, and is less than half the rate of a number of other states – including New York, Ohio, Maryland, Nebraska, Delaware, and Kansas.”
The DFCS lawyers went on to deny the juvenile court judges’ testimony about putting children behind bars.
“Commissioner Broce did not encourage judges to violate state law, and it has never been DFCS policy to punish a child with complex needs through detention,” they wrote.
The letter also outlined the progress DFCS has made in reducing the number of children housed in hotels or DFCS offices and the need for the General Assembly to increase the agency’s funding.
“Ultimately, the courts and DFCS are in this fight together,” the lawyers wrote. “(They) must stay focused on productive efforts to improve Georgia’s child welfare system.”
State Rep. Patty Bentley tested out a voting machine equipped with a paper backup during a demonstration several years ago shortly before they were rolled out. (Secretary of State’s office)
ATLANTA – Georgia elections officials defended the state’s elections system Wednesday from sharp criticism leveled by several state Senate Republicans during a committee hearing.
After using touch-screen voting machines since the early 2000s, the General Assembly passed legislation in 2019 providing for a paper backup to electronic ballots.
“The voter can read and verify their choices before that vote is scanned and tabulated,” Charlene McGowan, general counsel to the Georgia secretary of state’s office, which oversees elections in Georgia, told members of the Senate Ethics Committee. “It is safe and secure.”
McGowan went on to outline plans for further changes to the system now in the planning stages, including a software upgrade that will be rolled out as a pilot project in next month’s municipal elections in five counties.
Republican members of the committee expressed alarm that the upgrade won’t be implemented statewide until after next year’s elections. Several cited a report released by University of Michigan computer scientist Alex Halderman last year that identified nine flaws in the Dominion Voting System machines the state currently uses that he said leave the system vulnerable.
“This software is incompatible with Georgia elections,” said Sen. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming. “That’s unacceptable by any standard.”
Blake Evans, director of elections in the secretary of state’s office, said the flaws pointed out in Halderman’s report have been addressed.
“What we have in place mitigated those vulnerabilities and kept our elections secure,” he said.
But Dolezal argued that just because the state can fix the flaws identified in the report doesn’t solve the underlying problem.
“We know everybody has a key to the lock on the front door, and we don’t change the lock because we know we can catch them going out the back,” he said.
Other committee members complained that the QR code Dominion’s voting machines print on every paper ballot lacks transparency.
“My constituents don’t trust these QR codes,” said Sen. Brandon Beach, R-Alpharetta. “They don’t trust the machines or the scanners.”
Committee Chairman Max Burns, R-Sylvania, asked McGowan and Evans to work with the General Assembly to eliminate the QR code from paper ballots so voters will be certain their votes will be tabulated correctly. A bill Burns introduced in the Senate this year to do just that remains alive for consideration during the 2024 legislative session.
Burns also asked the secretary of state’s office to accelerate the implementation of the software upgrade so it can be in effect in time for next year’s elections.
“We share the same objective,” he told the elections officials. “We want secure and safe elections in Georgia our voters will have confidence in.”
ATLANTA – A former chief scientist for the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GRTI) has been sentenced to five years and 10 months in federal prison for defrauding both the university and the CIA.
James G. Maloney, 58, of Marietta and two co-conspirators used a Georgia Tech credit card that was supposed to go only toward purchases related to official university business and ran up hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal expenses.
James J. Acree, 58, of Atlanta, and James D. Fraley III, 45, of Canton, pleaded guilty in 2016 and cooperated with the government in the case.
The three conspirators are experts in electromagnetic analysis and measurements and were assigned to the GTRI’s Advanced Concepts Laboratory, where they worked on projects funded by the Defense Department, various intelligence agencies, and private industry.
From 2007 through 2013, the three ran up about $200,000 in charges on Fraley’s business credit card. They also entered into bogus consulting contracts with the U.S. Air Force and various private companies worth nearly $700,000.
The questionable charges were found during a routine audit in 2013. When confronted, Maloney suggested to his co-conspirators that they try to force Georgia Tech to shut down the audit by telling auditors the items charged were purchased to use on a classified CIA contract.
“Maloney, who was trusted to work on classified contracts for the U.S. government, took advantage of his high position at GRTI to line his own pockets at the public’s expense,” U.S. Attorney Ryan Buchanan said. “In addition to losing his job and his top-secret security clearance, Maloney is now facing a prison sentence.”
Besides the prison term, Maloney also was sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to pay restitution of more than $1.9 million. He was convicted on the charges last May after pleading guilty.
Acree and Fraley each were sentenced to serve three years on probation. Acree must pay more than $600,000 in restitution. Fraley must pay restitution of more than $475,000.
ATLANTA – Artificial intelligence can prove more beneficial to society than harmful but only with proper regulation, industry experts told Georgia lawmakers Wednesday.
“I’m an optimist,” Peter Stockburger, a San Diego-based partner in the global law firm Dentons who specializes in AI, told members of two state Senate committees. “It’s going to be used primarily for good as long as controls are in place.”
Stockburger testified before the Senate Public Safety and Science and Technology committees at their first hearing to examine how rapidly evolving AI technology is likely to affect public policy.
“We do not want to stifle innovation here,” said Sen. John Albers, R-Roswell, chairman of the Public Safety Committee. “But we want to establish guardrails to protect Georgians.”
Fred Diodati, director of consulting services in the Montreal office of CGI, said establishing guidelines that ensure humans are involved in AI systems is critical.
“Humans must be aware of what’s happening and be able to trace the decision-making process,” he said.
Stockburger said governments at the federal, state or local level that adopt “responsibility frameworks” requiring AI systems to be safe, secure, transparent, and fair likely will work in the short run.
President Joe Biden issued an executive order Tuesday establishing new federal standards for AI aimed at ensuring safety and security, protecting Americans’ privacy, and promoting innovation and competition.
But Stockburger said such approaches will not be effective in the future, once AI becomes smarter than humans. He said responsible AI practices in the future must be “machine readable,” encoded directly into AI systems to be effective.
“Governments are going to control the keys to the network and will allow AI on that network based on standards,” he said.
Albers said his goal is for Georgia to establish a governance framework addressing AI in the next six months.
“We’re the No.-1 state to do business,” he said. “We have to be number one in AI as well.”
