Welcome to the Muscogee County Prison Website.

For more than 135 years, the Muscogee County Government (now the Columbus Consolidated Government) has operated a work prison. Our name has changed over the years, but our mission has remained the same, "Justice and service to the community", which exhibits the fact that we protect our citizens from those prisoner (or inmates) to work in the service of and for the betterment of and for our community.

In March 1997, we completed the move into our present facility, which is leased to the Columbus Consolidated Government.

Within 60 to 90 days our organization grew from 32 positions to 115, and our inmate capacity grew 106%, with full population being realized in November 1997. We are contracted to hold 528 state inmates and have reserved 48 beds for county inmates who have been sentenced to short terms of imprisonment. While the county sheriff or the local courts do not operate the prison, we do work closely with both entities in the administration of justice.
 

The most compelling reason for our existence is revenue and custody of state and county offenders. While we generate and save Columbus a tremendous amount of money, we also keep convicted felon off our streets and out of our community. The lowest paid city employee salary is equivalent $24,210 per year with benefits.
 

Each day we dispatch 425 inmates for outside details, and 150 inmates remain inside our facility providing services and maintenance of City property. Our outside details augment the City's work force in maintaining infrastructures and providing services.
 

Replacing these 425 inmates with regular city employees, at G2 pay scale plus benefits, would cost the Columbus Consolidated Government $10,251,000, annually! Indeed a great cost saving to the community.
 

The inmate subsidy paid to county prison by the state of Georgia is $20 per inmate per day. Based on 520 state inmates, our FY04 inmate subsidy payments should not reach $3,796,000, which is deposited into the Columbus Consolidated Government's general fund.
 

Our FY04 budget was $5,681,240, and as described, we returned $3,796,000 of this which reduced the Consolidated Government's actual cost for our operation to $1,885,240, of our approved budget.