The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Fulton County Jail focal point of A&E’s ‘60 Days In’
Third season moves to grittier lockup, with more drama promised.
Participants voluntarily submit themselves to variations of physical and mental torture on TV shows such as “Naked and Afraid,” “Alone” and “Survivor.”
A&E’s “60 Days In,” which has shot seasons three and four back to back in Fulton County Jail, can create its own hellish trauma by replicating an experience millions deal with any given year: getting arrested and being thrown in lockup.
Nine innocent people on season three spent up to two months in jail last fall with actual prisoners for a variety of reasons: to empathize with a spouse who is an ex convict, a desire to reform what they see is a broken system or perhaps buff a resume for a future law enforcement job.
And when the promos say these seasons will be bigger and badder than those in Indiana’s Clark County Jail seasons one and two, they weren’t exaggerating.
Fulton County is five times larger than Clark County, with 2,500 prisoners at any one time. Gangs are rampant in Atlanta. The male inmates have to stay in their cells with one other person 15 to 19 hours a day compared to an open space 24/7 in Clark County. Throw in a mix of fistfights, boredom, power struggles, mental illness and drugs and the environment is fraught with danger. Inmates, aware cameras were installed for an unnamed TV show, are rightly paranoid of “snitches.”
The docuseries, which averaged 2 to 2.4 million viewers the first two seasons last year, comes back Thursday night at 9 p.m. for
a third season. The fourth season at the same facility with different participants will likely air later this year.
Mark Adger, the chief jailer who oversees the facility, agreed to allow cameras into his facility. When he took over the jail in 2011, he entered a significantly worse situation. According to stories by AJC reporter Rhonda Cook, the jail in the 2000s was “often so overcrowded, inmates slept on floors, so unsanitary that raw sewage flooded cells, so unsafe that inmates could wander about because of faulty locks.”
After an inmate filed a lawsuit in 2004, a judge ordered federal oversight of the jail. Once Adger took over, with a massive influx of money, he was able to hire enough staff and install proper locks. A federal judge freed the jail of federal control in 2015.
Nonetheless, Adger understands he is taking a major risk exposing his jail to public scrutiny. But he believes this will drive innovation: “This is way out there when it comes to risk taking. I’m getting toward the end of my career. I decided this would be the only way to perhaps shock us out of any complacency we had settled in.”
Executive producer Gregory Henry was surprised that a jail of this size and scope would want to work with them. “But once I sat down with Colonel Adger, it started to make sense,” he said.
Adger, though he has yet to see the show itself, has no regrets. “It was absolutely worth it,” he said. “If I could do it again, I would.”
Not that he didn’t worry during shooting that something tragic would be captured on camera. “I wondered if I might have to leave the country after this,” he joked.
As a cover, the show producers told staff that they were producing a documentary of prison life in a broad sense. Only a handful of the Fulton County jail management knew what was really going on.
The show installed 28 cameras and 112 microphones in three locations: two on the men’s side and one in the South Annex in Union City, where the women reside. They had staff tracking the jail 24/7 for two months. They purposely cast the participants far from Atlanta to minimize the chances someone might know them.
The publicity team provided one of the participants for a phone interview but wouldn’t allow the use of his last name for his safety. “If this show does one thing, I would hope it would teach people to stop breaking the law and go to a horrible place like this,” said Nate, a former U.S. Marine who is seeking a job as a Fish & Wildlife enforcement officer in Florida.
A Floridian, he created a cover story involving coming to Atlanta to take back stolen family jewelry from an ex-girlfriend. Her new boyfriend supposedly got into a tussle with him and called the cops.
Adger said most participants did a good job keeping their cover stories intact but “some got a little ahead of themselves or full of themselves.”
Grogan said the fact the inmates are isolated with roommates 15 hours a day made for more intimate storytelling. “We embraced that as a creative challenge,” he said. Indeed, 29-year-old Nick said he got to spend quality time with a smart 20-year-old who needed a serious lift to his self worth. “I felt like I was a positive mentor,” he said.
Amazingly, most inmates were okay having their faces on camera. “Jail is a really boring place,” said Greg Henry, another executive producer. “I’ve worked in a lot of correctional facilities. People will jump at the chance to break up the monotony.”