PR03-025

Date:

October 10, 2003

 
Countywide Computer Outage Effects Release
of Inmates at Fulton County Jail
 

Inmate processing at the Fulton County Jail has been adversely effected by a county-wide computer outage since Wednesday, October 8, 2003. While technicians work to restore the entire network, the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office is faced with several concerns from the general public regarding delays in the release of eligible offenders from the county jail.

As systems throughout the county are gradually restored, network computer operations at the jail are still effected by the outage. The Sheriff’s Office has been working to address questions from family members regarding inmates eligible for release.

“We are truly sorry for the inconvenience and frustrations that the system failure has caused the public.” says Fulton County Sheriff Jacquelyn H. Barrett. “We are moving as expeditiously as possible to release eligible offenders from our facility as computer operations are restored.”

As the network computer problems are being addressed, the jail has been able to release some offenders. However, the process has been extremely slow. Although an inmate may be eligible for release, the Sheriff’s Office is legally obligated to ensure that prisoners do not have active warrants or holds from other jurisdictions prior to their departure from the jail. The computer outage has seriously affected the department’s ability to meet those obligations.

Normal operations at the jail are expected to resume as soon as the county network computer system is restored.

For more information, please contact Lieutenant Clarence Huber at (404) 730-4148. Lieutenant Huber can also be reached on his digital pager at (404) 742-6798.