Jul. 9—ACWORTH — For the first time in nearly 90 years, Acworth is without a city lockup.

The city, with little fanfare, closed down its jail last week some 27 years after it was built. Under a new arrangement, detainees will be shipped down to the Smyrna city jail, which city officials said will save hundreds of thousands of dollars each year.

Mayor Tommy Allegood, padding through the cool, dark halls of the empty jail, said the city began discussing how to get "out of the jail business" several years ago. The 45-bed building was typically less than halfway full, costing the city about $1.5 million each year to keep the lights on.

"And we don't have a lot of crime," Allegood was quick to add, "being one of the safest cities in Georgia."

The now-shuttered facility was first built in 1995, then expanded several years later for $4 million, said Acworth Police Maj. Mark Cheatham. It replaced the original city jail downtown, built in 1935 to the tune of $3,000.

Cheatham said when he started with the department 22 years ago, the jail was housing detainees from several neighboring jurisdictions and was "full 24/7, 365." Though it's since maintained agreements to take detainees from Marietta, Kennesaw, and Dallas, in recent years only 15 or 20 people were confined to its cells.

During the pandemic, Allegood said, the city was looking for areas to cut costs and address staffing shortfalls (he was also eager to unload the liability associated with running the facility). The city opened talks with former Cobb County Sheriff Neil Warren, and then Sheriff Craig Owens, Warren's successor, about transferring operations over to the county and making the Acworth jail a "north annex" of the Cobb detention center on County Services Parkway.

But Acworth and the county couldn't come to an agreement, and the city elected to move forward with closing the jail altogether. It was officially shuttered July 1.

In lieu of its own facility, the Acworth Police Department created a dedicated transport unit to ferry detainees to Smyrna's roughly 70-bed jail off Atlanta Road. The unit, though not terribly busy, helps keep patrol officers on the streets of Acworth and out of traffic on I-75, Cheatham said (individuals picked up on arrest warrants still head to the Cobb jail).

In exchange, Acworth will pay $45 per inmate, per day to Smyrna; for 20 inmates, that comes out to just shy of $330,000 per year. The 15 employees who staffed Acworth's jail, meanwhile, have almost all been absorbed into the transport unit or other city departments.

Allegood estimated the total savings at less than a million dollars annually, adding, "those monies will be invested in other public safety services and other quality of life services."

Kennesaw, meanwhile, recently came to an agreement with Cobb County to send its detainees to the county jail. The county will receive $55 per inmate, per day, per a contract recently approved by the Cobb County Board of Commissioners.

Cheatham said the city doesn't have any plans for the former jail — "We'll just keep the lights on and spray for bugs," Allegood added — but will leave open the possibility of revisiting an agreement to transfer it to the sheriff's office.