Sharon Turner is a longtime member of Women on the Rise. Her arrest record dates back to the 1980s and early 1990s, before the current jail was built. Nonetheless, she said, “Jail is jail. You’re inside a cage.” She and other formerly incarcerated women canvassed the streets with a 10-page survey about the jail. They stopped homeless people, mall shoppers, and random pedestrians. They asked if they or anyone they knew had ever been in ACDC, if they’d like to see it closed and transformed, and what they wanted to see in its place.

Sharon Turne, along with other formerly incarcerated women canvassed the streets with a 10-page survey about the ACDC, asking people if they’d like to see it closed and transformed, and what they wanted to see in its place.

“People were eager,” Turner said. “They took the time to fill out every single question. It was easier to get them to do that than to get them to register to vote.”

Chantel Isbell, who had been jailed at ACDC three times, joined the campaign just as Mayor Bottoms signed the legislation. During her first stint at ACDC, in 2013, she repeatedly asked for medical attention. “My head hurt,” she recalled, “and I had a nervous breakdown.” She was ignored for hours before an officer told her that the nurse had left for the day. Isbell spent two days in the jail before she was allowed to be released on a signature bond, meaning that she was allowed to sign herself out of jail without posting bail.

Two years later, she was stopped at a MARTA station. The officer ran her name and found that she had a warrant for another county and arrested her. This time, Isbell spent 36 days at ACDC before being transferred to the other county’s jail. At ACDC, she was not given soap or other hygiene products, save for two sanitary napkins. If she needed more, the officers said, she should use toilet paper.

Winn and Turner are members of the city’s task force on how to repurpose the site, including considering whether to tear down the existing behemoth and construct an entirely new building or renovate the existing structure.

“I wouldn’t wish it [the jail] on a dog,” she said. Now, Isbell, host of the vlog Let’s Dig With Tel, helps with outreach to keep people informed and encourage their involvement in reimagining the site. She publicizes the campaign through her social media channels; she also talks to people face-to-face, knocking on doors and approaching them at MARTA stations and neighborhood schools in Five Points and southwest Atlanta, areas hit hard by policing and criminalization.

Though ACDC sits largely empty today, it still costs $21 million in annual operating costs.

Winn wants to see the building — and that money — used to prevent people from being arrested at all. The surrounding community needs more resources and services. Located in south downtown, ACDC’s neighbors include a half-dozen bail bond offices, a strip club, a Greyhound station, and a homeless shelter. During the day, people curl into doorways of empty storefronts to sleep.

Chantel Isbell, host of the vlog Let’s Dig With Tel, helps with outreach to keep people informed and encourage their involvement in reimagining the site.

Winn and Turner are members of the city’s task force on how to repurpose the site, including considering whether to tear down the existing behemoth and construct an entirely new building or renovate the existing structure. They are also tasked with garnering community input for programs and services for a center for equity—or, as Winn calls it, a “center for freedom, equity, and wellness”—and incorporating these suggestions into proposed building designs. Suggestions range from the practical (transitional and temporary housing, affordable childcare, programs addressing mental health and substance use) to outdoor green spaces for growing vegetables in the food desert of south downtown, artist studios, and a quiet space for people to have time away from the chaos of the streets. The jail kitchen could be repurposed into a commercial kitchen to provide healthy meals for the center’s patrons and job training in the restaurant industry.

If such a center had existed before, Bennett said, “It would have changed my life at [age] 39 instead of 59.” That’s the consensus of every formerly incarcerated campaign member — access to resources would have kept them from the downward spiral of arrest and incarceration.

“The South is known for locking folks up and throwing away the key,” Winn said. Closing and repurposing the jail would show the rest of the nation that “Atlanta has the model for people to be whole, free, and doing what it takes to be free.”