Some facilities run by the Georgia Department of Corrections have only half the necessary personnel to provide security and basic services, according to the findings of a scathing report by the Justice Department.
Credit...Erik S. Lesser/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Conditions at Georgia Prisons Violate Constitution, Justice Dept. Says

At one facility, the body of an inmate, possibly strangled in his cell, was so decomposed that the coroner concluded he had been dead for two days without being discovered.

by · NY Times

A Justice Department investigation into Georgia’s state prison system found conditions that violate the Constitution, including rampant violence, sexual assault, drug smuggling and gang activity, according to a report released on Tuesday.

The investigation by the department’s Civil Rights Division comes as the system, which houses around 50,000 inmates at any given time, is in crisis — with 142 homicides reported at facilities run by the Georgia Department of Corrections from 2018 to 2023.

That number has skyrocketed, with 94 homicides reported in 2021, 2022 and 2023, and at least 24 in the first six months of 2024.

In most similar cases, federal and state officials eventually hash out a restructuring plan that includes federal assistance and compliance benchmarks, with the possibility of filing a lawsuit if state officials do not comply.

Driving the dysfunction is a severe and chronic staffing shortage, a growing problem for many corrections systems, including the federal Bureau of Prisons. In Georgia, some lockups have only half the necessary personnel to provide security and basic services, according to the findings of the scathing report.

“People are assaulted, stabbed raped and killed or left to languish inside facilities that are woefully understaffed,” according to the report’s authors, led by Kristen Clarke, the assistant attorney general overseeing the Civil Rights Division. “Inmates are maimed and tortured, relegated to an existence of fear, filth and not-so-benign neglect.”

Georgia officials are “deliberately indifferent to these unsafe conditions,” the report said. “The state has known about the unsafe conditions for years and has failed to take reasonable measures to address them.”

The state Corrections Department fired back after the report was released, accusing Justice Department officials of failing to acknowledge “the successful initiatives undertaken to improve conditions” inside the nation’s fourth-largest state prison system.

The Corrections Department “fully cooperated with D.O.J.’s investigation and will continue to do so as we begin discussions with D.O.J. over next steps,” Joan Heath, a department spokeswoman, wrote in an email.

“As history demonstrates, D.O.J.’s track record in prison oversight is poor — often entangling systems in years of expensive and unproductive court monitoring,” she added, citing the Justice Department’s yearslong push to improve conditions at Rikers Island in New York.

But the Justice Department presented example after example of horrific violence that has gone, in some instances, unchecked and undiscovered by overwhelmed prison employees.

In December 2023 alone, five inmates died after being stabbed or involved in altercations at Central State Prison, in Bibb County; Macon State Prison, in Macon County; and Coastal State Prison, in Chatham County.

Over four days in April 2023, two prisoners were assaulted at Smith State Prison, west of Savannah.

One was assaulted by “multiple incarcerated people,” in an episode that was captured on video and distributed outside the prison. The body of a second man was found, possibly strangled in his cell, four days later. His body was so decomposed that the coroner concluded he had been dead for two days without being discovered.

Investigators also found a widespread pattern of abuse victimizing L.G.B.T.Q. inmates, along with several reports of gang rapes.

In one instance, from early 2023, a transgender prisoner reported being sexually assaulted at knifepoint. In March 2021, a man at the now-shuttered Georgia State Prison in Tattnall County who was hospitalized for “physical injuries and food deprivation” revealed that a cellmate had sexually assaulted him over a long period of time, according to the report.

The Georgia investigation was prompted by a stunning outbreak of violence in state prisons at the beginning of the decade. During a riot at Ware State Prison that played out on social media, hundreds of inmates took over the building, set fires and took guards hostage, resulting in widespread damage and injuries.

Many of the episodes cited in the report were well known to state officials and the local news media. The Georgia Department of Corrections has taken steps in recent years to address many of the problems by significantly bolstering employee compensation, increasing recruitment efforts and deploying mobile tactical units to patrol particularly troubled prisons.

But those steps “have been inadequate to address the scope of the harm and risk of harm to incarcerated people and employees in G.D.C.’s prisons,” the Justice Department wrote.

The Justice Department asked for 82 different improvements to the system, including a comprehensive, systemwide assessment of conditions, a new strategic management plan, stepped-up hiring efforts, new policies for dealing with sexual assaults and harassment, unannounced inspections of cells, better training and a new data collection system.

Inside the Biden Administration

Here’s the latest news and analysis from Washington.