The Justice Department unveiled findings Tuesday that critical understaffing and enablement of gangs in Georgia prisons subjects its inmates to unconstitutional conditions including physical and sexual violence, Courthouse News reports. "The state has created a chaotic and dangerous environment," Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division said at a Tuesday press conference. "The Constitutional violations are not isolated incidents but long-standing systemic violations stemming from a culture of indifference to the safety and security of people Georgia holds." Officials outline in the 93-page report the state's failure to protect inmates, culminating in 142 inmate homicides from 2018 to 2023, with 94 of the deaths coming from 2021 to 2023, a trend that is likely to continue to rise, according to Clarke. "Our findings yield a prison system in crisis," U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan for the Northern District of Georgia added. The investigation into the state's prison systems showed that it's not only inmates dying in the facilities; in one incident outlined in the report, an inmate shot and killed a food service worker with a contraband gun. The lack of supervision allows violent incidents to happen daily. Data on deaths, assaults and rapes are likely underreported, Clarke said.
A coroner estimated that a male prisoner killed by his cellmate was dead for over two days before staff noticed. Another male inmate reported being tortured for several days, where he suffered stabs and the piercing of his eye. "It is impossible to look at these facts and not come away with a sense of shock and horror," Attorney Peter Leary for the Middle District of Georgia said. Correctional officers at the Pulaski State Prison only heard of a female inmate's stabbing by somebody outside the prison who had presumably texted the victim. The inmate later claimed ten other inmates attacked hours before the staff realized. "When staff responded to the cell, they found an incarcerated woman locked in her cell and slumped over the toilet. She had a gash on her head and was bleeding profusely," officials wrote in the report." She was holding her left side, crying, and saying she could not breathe." Investigations also showed that threats of violence are far more common for inmates in the LGBTQ community. The Justice Department said Georgia has no policies to protect this vulnerable population. "While Georgia claims to have taken steps to improve conditions, those steps have fallen woefully short," Clarke said.
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