On Wednesday, Donald Trump turned himself in to Atlanta’s notorious Fulton County Jail.
The facility is widely known as a pre-trial detention center for low-level offenders who can’t afford to make bond.
But after spending approximately 20 minutes inside the facility and reporting his own vitals — a rare move unless you happen to be the former president of the United States — Trump posted $200,000 bail, thanks to a local bondsman, and returned to the world a free man after being charged on at least 13 felony offenses relating to conspiring to overturn Georgia’s results in the 2020 presidential election.
“Today, at the notoriously violent jail in Fulton County, Georgia, I was arrested despite having committed no crime,” Trump said in a written statement on his website. “The American people know what’s going on. What has taken place is a travesty of justice and election interference.”
Trump’s experience is far from the norm of people incarcerated at Fulton County Jail, known locally as Rice Street Jail for its location.
Most cannot afford to leave, activists say, and are forced to spend months at a time awaiting hearings in squalid conditions.
A 2022 report by the American Civil Liberties Union found 117 people had been held at Fulton County Jail for more than one year without an indictment. Another 12 had been held for over two years without indictment, violating a Georgia law stating that a person in jail must be provided bond or indicted within 90 days.
Those only charged with misdemeanors were held in jail for an average 40 days and 30 percent of those charged with misdemeanors were detained for more than three months.
In 2021, the three most common booking charges at the facility were criminal trespass, possession and use of drugs and shoplifting, according to county data.
Not all of those common offenses rise to the level of felony charges.
Fulton County Jail hasn’t just been in the news lately because of who’s been booked there.
Seven people…
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