In 2006, the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta was put under a court order to improve security and safety for both inmates and officers. The facility had experienced a high rate of attacks, both inmate-on-inmate and inmate-on-officer, because inmates were easily defeating the old locks.
Jail officials contacted Willo and asked for our help, explaining how the inmates were easily and quickly defeating the existing cell door locks. Over the next few months, we worked closely with the Fulton County officials and from this discussion, Willo developed the Wedge. In order to test the Wedge, Chief Adger first had Willo install nine of the devices and put the inmates most proficient at popping the locks in the test cells. He enticed them with $20 worth of free commissary if they could defeat the Wedge and get out of their cells. None was able to do so.
As a result, Colonel Adger was able to get funding to install 950 Wedges throughout the two seven-story towers. Fulton County Jail is now a more secure facility, experiencing much less violence and much higher staff morale.