Group to survey all Muscogee County Jail inmates in 2016 to help reduce overcrowding

A local initiative to survey every inmate at the Muscogee County Jail will begin in February, a local attorney announced this week.

Katonga Wright, managing partner with the Wright Legal Group, unveiled the Muscogee County Jail Project Thursday at a community meeting in the chambers of Superior Court Judge Gil McBride.

Wright, chairwoman of the committee launching the project, said the initiative is being spearheaded by the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Fountain City Bar Association, a group comprising local black attorneys.

Wright said the goal of the project is to help alleviate overcrowding at the Muscogee County Jail in conjunction with a Rapid Resolution Initiative launched by the district attorney and public defender in partnership with other government agencies and community organizations.

She said the RRI program has helped move inmates through the legal system more efficiently, "but we also recognize that there are some issues that need to be resolved."

Wright said the Muscogee County Jail Project is based on a similar initiative in Fulton County that she participated in while still in law school.

It was the result of "some horrible conditions, overcrowding, inmate violence, staff shortages and health hazards," she said. "It was a retroactive approach to try to solve some problems that were already there.

"We're not saying Muscogee County Jail has those type of problems, but what we're saying is, 'Let's take a retroactive approach to figure out how to not get there,'" she said, "figure out how we can make our jail better. And the overall goal is to reduce the inmate population."

Wright said members of the committee include, among others, McBride, Columbus Councilor Jerry "Pops" Barnes; the Rev. Richard Jessie of the NAACP; J. Aleem Hud of Project Rebound; and Monica Echols, the local liaison for Gov. Nathan Deal's prisoner re-entry program in Columbus. All five were at Thursday's meeting.

Steve Craft, chief assistant public defender, also was present. He in an earlier interview with the Ledger-Enquirer said that RRI already is making progress. Inmate reductions have led to officials recently closing one of the floors at the jail, he said, but it's still too early to determine if that will continue.

"The overall pending felony inmate numbers are down, and there's a significant number of people waiting for the Department of Corrections to come pick (them) up. And if they don't pick them up soon, then they become an expense to the state and the sheriff gets some reimbursement for those people."

He said the Muscogee Jail Project will enhance the work officials are doing through RRI by gathering hard data that can be analyzed.

"Any time we can identify any kind of trend, averages, or program areas that only helps everybody," he said. "It helps city officials from the budget side. It helps judges to have a better understanding. It shows the prosecutors and the defense attorneys what things they can be looking at, and it helps the jail address the jail population."

Wright said the group would be working closely with the sheriff, public defender and district attorney offices to get a better understanding of what's happening to those incarcerated. She said the project would analyze the pre-arrest, pre-indictment and post-release stages of the legal process. The group also would be recruiting volunteers to help with the surveys, she said.

Wright said some people belong in jail, but the group will look closer at the system to see if there are other alternatives for others who may not need to be incarcerated. It will investigate how long it takes suspects to see an attorney, how bonds are set and other procedures. The study will also focus on ways to safely reintegrate inmates back into society.

"The community will benefit overall, obviously, from having people who can be processed faster and reintegrated back into the working population of our community," she said. "We don't typically benefit in any way having somebody sitting in jail who could be working and providing resources and time to their family."

Alva James-Johnson, 706-571-8521. Reach her on Facebook at AlvaJamesJohnsonLedger.

This story was originally published December 18, 2015 at 10:12 PM with the headline "Group to survey all Muscogee County Jail inmates in 2016 to help reduce overcrowding ."