Information
The Detention Facility is a four-story, 146,000 sq ft., 552 bed facility open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The Detention Facility houses persons arrested by all area Law Enforcement Agencies, which include the Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office, Dalton Police Department, Tunnel Hill Police Department, Cohutta Police Department, Varnell Police Department, Georgia State Patrol, GBI, Dalton College Police and the occasional Federal Agency.
The Correctional Center serves 3 meals a day to an average of approximately 400 inmates, which totals approximately 438,000 meals per year. Contract food service workers, as well as inmate labor, are utilized to meet this need. During the course of a regular day, breakfast and lunch are served hot the while the evening meal consists of sandwiches. All menus meet or exceed all of the daily requirements of calorie intake and special meals are provided upon request for persons with verified medical conditions or religious preference.
There are a total of 94 staff members in the Detention Division. This number includes Detention Security staff as well as administrative professionals, nursing staff and others. This number does not include the numerous contracted workers that also support facility medical and food service functions. Individuals interested in career opportunities may click here
The Detention Division allows inmates to assist in the upkeep of the facility as well as providing services to other inmates and the citizens of Whitfield County. This workforce is composed entirely of inmate volunteers and presents many opportunities for inmates to be active and give back to their community. These inmates may perform work functions in the Kitchen, Laundry, Janitorial or Inmate Work Crew (Outside Inmate General Labor). The inmates who work in these details are all hired through a security and medical background process conducted by Inmate Work Crew Personnel.
The use of inmate labor results in drastic reductions in facility costs as well as reducing the costs of county government. Internal use of inmate labor alone accounts for over 60,000 hours of free labor per year. Outside work details including mowing landscaping and mowing county property as well as providing manual labor for many projects in the community including work on the Miracle Field, cleanup and safety projects at local schools, as well as providing basic maintenance services at the jail, 911 Center, Courthouse, and other locations. The inmate work crew regularly provides tens of thousands of man hours every year to community projects and support of local government.
The Detention Facility provides services and has certain expectations for inmates in custody. Many of these are outlined in the inmate handbook, available here: Inmate Handbook
Visitation
Visitation is conducted by video conference equipment in general population living areas, which can be accessed remotely by the public at jailatm.com. This allows individuals to visit away from the facility, at home or other locations. This process is a benefit to many inmates, and families, in order to facilitate communications during difficult times. Visitation is subject to regulations and requirements of policy and the law. Visitation policy and information can be found here: Link
Mail and Property
The facility has made changes over time to fight the introduction of dangerous drugs, which can be harmful to our staff and inmates. Because these types of contraband can be hidden readily, and are so dangerous, we have taken steps to remove unnecessary physical mail and other items from the facility. All mail and property is subject to search, including legal mail. Inmate mail should be sent to the following address, where it will be scanned in to the kiosk system, to be viewed.
JailATM.com – Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office
Inmate Name / Inmate Number
925B Peachtree St. NE, Box 2062
Atlanta, GA 30309
Please Note: Inmate Mail mailed directly to the Detention Facility will not be accepted and will be returned to sender or destroyed. Likewise, Bulk mail (copies of internet sites, numerous large scanned copies, etc...) will not be accepted.
Legal mail will continue to be accepted at this facility, if it is sent by an attorney of record. Legal mail must be clearly marked “Private Legal Mail” with the inmate’s name and cell location. Any personal correspondence with inmates mixed in with legal or business mail will be considered contraband and will be destroyed.
Business or administrative forms requiring a signature should be brought to the facility directly whenever possible. Prior to this, arrangements should be made for signatures through the Grievance Office or the Housing Supervisor.
We will continue to accept books mailed directly from the vendor/publisher. However, no used books will be accepted. This includes religious books: personal bibles/korans, family bibles, or used religious texts of any kind will not be accepted. This rule exists to both prevent contraband and also prevent the loss of valuable family property from being damaged, lost or destroyed. If any inmate is in need of a primary religious text, they should contact the grievance officer who will assist them with available copies or in communicating this need to others who may assist.
Generally speaking, no other outside property will be allowed to be directly transferred to an inmate. Clothing, hygiene items and other materials can be purchased from the commissary system. Basic hygiene items can be provided if the inmate has had no access to funds in some cases.
Some limited items may be accepted, based on a medical need. These include medications in the original container, contacts (not contact solution) in the original container and prescription glasses.
Special Programs
Religious Programs
The Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office Detention Facility supports the exercise of freedom of religion provided in our 1st Amendment of the United States Constitution. As such, religious programs are offered by qualified ministers and religious volunteers. Likewise, our staff has been trained to support individual choice and to facilitate communication with families or others to provide religious materials to those who may need these texts to practice their individual faith.
Inmate Work Crew
Outside Work Details are conducted on a regular basis, particularly during the Spring, Summer, and early Fall. These details include mowing around government buildings, removing trash from county roads, Graffiti removal, and placing flags for public veterans’ events, and large scale county projects, among other tasks.
In the past years, Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office inmate work crews removed hundreds of thousands of pounds of refuse from county roadways. In addition, the Inmate Work Crew has reduced the labor costs of the county by providing inmate labor for projects such as laying carpet at the 911 Center, painting and laying sod at county rec facilities (such as Edward’s Park, Miracle Field and the new Riverbend Park facility), clearing land and removing refuse from county property, restoring abandoned historical locations, and much more.
Inmates with Special Needs or Disabilities
If a family member is concerned about an inmate with special needs having access to resources at the facility, they should contact the grievance officer or our behavior health coordinator. Individuals with disabilities, language barriers, mental health conditions, or other limitations should feel free to reach out to our staff for assistance. Please note, however, that difficulties such as these do not make someone immune from prosecution and the facility does not have the authority to simply release a subject: this is a function of the courts. However, we can attempt to adapt certain procedures to help accommodate the inmate, or a family member, who is struggling with access to our systems.
287(g) Immigration Jail Enforcement Operations
The Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office 287(G) program began in the spring of 2008 due to increased public demands for immigration enforcement reform and public support for increased cooperation between this Office and ICE.
From the beginning, the goals of this unit have been to serve the community by removing dangerous criminal aliens, improving communication and cooperation with federal agencies, and utilizing currently available resources available to best accomplish these tasks. We have seen numerous successes in utilizing this program, which has benefitted the community by the removal of dangerous criminal aliens. In addition, it has helped to reduce the fiscal tax burden by removing some recidivist inmates to their home nations, instead of maintaining repeat offenders in local custody.
This program is not a means of arresting individuals in public for alleged violations of immigration law. Instead, this program operates based on a series of reviews and background checks completed only after an inmate is already arrested for an Offense under Georgia Law. Individuals arrested for crimes and brought to the facility are processed through a system of background searches and biometric checks by trained Detention personnel. These checks are through federal identification systems that are unavailable to Local Law Enforcement who are not involved in the DHS/ICE 287(g) program. Functionally, this is similar to an additional fingerprint process and administrative check at the time of booking.
This process has been successful in determining the identity of individuals who would not have otherwise been identified. In addition, it has been successful in identifying and removing human traffickers, serious felons, fugitives and escapees, previously deported felons, and fugitives from Justice that would not have otherwise been located and brought to the attention of federal agencies.