DOJ: Georgia prisons beset by systematic violence, chaos

ATLANTA — A federal investigation uncovered stunning violence in an out-of-control Georgia state prison system, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Tuesday.

“The findings report we issue today lays bare the horrific and inhumane conditions that people are confined to inside Georgia’s state prison system,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “We uncovered long-standing systemic violations stemming from complete indifference and disregard to the safety and security of people Georgia holds in its prisons. People are assaulted, stabbed, raped and killed or left to languish inside facilities that are woefully understaffed.”

Clarke said immediate action was required by the state of Georgia to correction unconstitutional conditions that threaten public safety. The DOJ announced its long-awaited findings at a press conference Tuesday afternoon in Atlanta.

Georgia Department of Corrections officials responded to the announcement by saying they were extremely disappointed to learn of the Justice Department’s decision to level a variety of accusations against the prison system. “Contrary to DOJ’s allegations, the State of Georgia’s prison system operates in a manner exceeding the requirements of the United States Constitution,” spokeswoman Joan Heath said in an email.

Tuesday’s announcement is the result of an investigation launched by the DOJ on Sept. 14, 2021. At that time, the government, notified Gov. Brian Kemp, Georgia Attorney General Christopher Carr, the state prison commissioner and wardens of the state’s 34 prisons that it was expanding a 2016 inquiry into treatment of LGBTI prisoners to determine whether the state had also failed to protect prisoners from violence by other inmates.

The DOJ’s action came after the Atlanta-based Southern Center for Human Rights called on the department to intervene in the prison system, citing what it called “deplorable conditions of confinement, escalating violence, and a recent series of uprisings.”

As the investigation unfolded, the government sought incident reports and autopsy findings for all homicides, referrals to law enforcement for criminal prosecution and emergency response to lockdowns, among other documents. The GDC fought the requests, saying it would produce documents only if the government signed a protective order not to disclose the information it was seeking. The DOJ eventually agreed to protect personally identifiable information about prisoners and former prisoners and their relatives and current or former GDC staff unless there is evidence of a criminal violation.

Even then, the investigative report says, the process of obtaining records was unnecessarily contentious and lengthy, and as of Tuesday, the Department of Corrections still has not provided some documents that investigators requested in a second subpoena.

Since the federal investigation began, the killings in Georgia prisons have only mounted. In 2023, the system had at least 38 homicides, a new state record and the highest number across the South, the AJC determined. New reporting by the AJC has found that the state is on track this year to break that record, with at least 26 homicides in the first six months.

The Georgia findings come with the DOJ embroiled in a case of similar magnitude in Alabama that has led the government to sue the state in federal court.

After a three-year investigation, the DOJ notified Alabama in April 2019 that investigators had found a culture of violence in the state’s 13 major prisons for men, resulting in frequent inmate rapes, beatings and fatal stabbings. When those issues weren’t resolved to the government’s satisfaction, it filed a lawsuit in December 2020.

As it has in Georgia, the DOJ has hit Alabama with a laundry list of tough allegations, asserting that dangerously low staffing rates and overcrowded conditions have left violence unabated and that conditions are so poor that they violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

A status conference on the lawsuit is scheduled for Oct. 7, with the case headed for trial next year.

The DOJ has also found violations in the Mississippi prison system. In that case, initiated by the government in 2020 and leading to a public report in February, the DOJ contends that Mississippi has failed to protect prisoners at three prisons from widespread physical violence.

According to the DOJ, Mississippi doesn’t adequately supervise prisons, control the flow of contraband or properly investigate incidents of serious harm. The problems have been exacerbated, the DOJ asserts, because chronic understaffing essentially has left gangs in charge. The DOJ has also found that prisoners in Mississippi have been housed in unsanitary, hazardous and chaotic housing conditions that are breeding grounds for suicide, fires and assaults.

Key findings

—The GDC allows frequent, pervasive violence

—Its grossly inadequate staffing leaves incarcerated persons unsupervised

—The state’s prisons are unsafe due to aging and inadequately maintained facilities and failure to have adequate lock and key controls

—The GDC’s ineffective classification and housing systems expose prisoners to an unreasonable risk of violence

—Even in its segregated housing, the GDC fails to control violence

—The prison system fails to control violent and illegal activities by gangs

—It fails to control weapons, drugs and other dangerous contraband

—Prison officials fail to report and investigate serious incidents of harm and dangerous activities

—Incarcerated people, including LGBTI prisoners, are not reasonably protected from sexual harm

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OUR REPORTING

In nearly two dozen investigative stories published over the past two years, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has detailed the crisis in the Georgia prison system. Reporters Carrie Teegardin and Danny Robbins have documented record homicides and drug overdoses, extensive criminal enterprises operated by inmates and hundreds of cases of corrupt prison employees. The system’s failures have put the public at risk and cost Georgia taxpayers tens of millions of dollars in legal settlements, as well as millions in extra health care costs due to the rampant violence.

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