ATLANTA — The future of the Atlanta City Detention Center remains uncertain as city and county leaders discuss whether the facility should continue housing inmates beyond 2026.

The detention center was originally slated to close in 2019, but Fulton County began leasing hundreds of beds at the city-owned facility to address chronic overcrowding at the Rice Street jail.

That four-year lease is set to expire in 2026. Councilman Antonio Lewis hopes they can begin having conversations about what that end could look like.

"The goal is to enact what we said we would, to make sure that the meetings are happening," he told 11Alive. "It's time for us to start the conversations, to see how can we save lives and to look at whatever we are doing right now with Fulton County."

Those conversations sp

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