Georgia prisons 'horrific and unsafe' with homicides rampant: Justice Department

WASHINGTON – The Georgia Department of Corrections houses inmates in “horrific and unsafe conditions” in violation of the Constitution’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment, a Justice Department report released Tuesday alleges.

The report found the state “deliberately indifferent to these unsafe conditions” for nearly 50,000 prisoners. The constitutional violations, which the state has known about for years and failed to remedy, resulted from staffing deficiencies, the physical condition of the buildings, the management of gangs and the control of weapons and other contraband, the report found.

"Our findings report lays bare the horrific and inhumane conditions that people are confined to inside Georgia's state prison system," said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. "People are assaulted, raped and killed or left to languish inside facilities that are woefully understaffed. Inmates are maimed and tortured, relegated to an existence of fear, filth and not-so-benign neglect."

Clarke said federal officials looked forward to working swiftly with state officials to remedy the constitutional violations. But state officials denied constitutional violations and said all prison systems have problems with staffing and violence.

The Georgia Department of Corrections was “extremely disappointed” to learn about the federal accusations about the system, spokesperson Joan Heath said. Correctional staffing, violence and gang activity are problems at all prisons, including the federal Bureau of Prisons, she said.

“Contrary to DOJ’s allegations, the State of Georgia’s prison system operates in a manner exceeding the requirements of the United States Constitution,” Heath said. “Hence, DOJ’s findings today reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the current challenges of operating any prison system.”

Georgia’s prisons would cooperate with federal authorities, Heath said. But the Justice Department’s “track record in prison oversight is poor,” including monitoring Riker’s Island in New York for eight years despite employing one guard for each inmate there, she said.

The report identified hundreds of serious incidents of “systemic violence and chaos” in the prisons. In December 2023, the prisons experienced five homicides at four prisons, and other serious incidents, including numerous deaths after altercations between inmates, and a Central State Prison inmate dying from cardiac arrest after being stabbed, treated at a hospital and returning to prison.

The investigation found 142 inmates were killed in Georgia's prisons from 2018 to 2023. That homicide rate was three times the national rate during the same period.

In April 2023, Smith State Prison had two brutal assaults with one resulting in a man’s death. On April 5, an inmate was discovered dead, possibly strangled by his roommate. The local coroner noted the body was badly decomposed and had likely been dead for over two days.

Sexual violence also is a systemic problem, according to the report. Inmates reported 635 sexual-abuse allegations in 2022, the most recent year available, 639 in 2021 and 702 in 2020.

In August 2020, an inmate at Phillips State Prison was held hostage and tortured for four days, having been stabbed from behind with his eye pierced and suffering a traumatic brain injury, the report said.

“Individuals incarcerated by the Georgia Department of Corrections should not be subjected to life threatening violence and other forms of severe deprivation while serving their prison terms,” said U.S. Attorney Ryan Buchanan for the Northern District of Georgia.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Georgia prisons 'horrific and unsafe,' violate the Constitution: DOJ