County jails are intended to house prisoners awaiting trial. But a recent report from the Georgia Department of Community Affairs shows that the number of state-sentenced inmates being held in jails has risen from 3,278 last January to 5,277 a year later.

Officials with the Georgia Department of Corrections told the Atlanta Journal Constitution they are working on reducing that backlog. According to the AJC those plans include adding 2,300 beds to prisons across the state and triple-bunking inmates at some facilities.

Representative Judy Manning of Marietta told the AJC that the state relies on jails to house inmates because they simply don’t have enough space or money to build new facilities.

According to the DOC Georgia’s prison system is running at 105 percent capacity.

Tags: jail overcrowding, Georgia Department of Corrections, prison overcrowding, county jails, state inmates