ATLANTA – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia concluded that the Georgia Department of Corrections is violating incarcerated persons’ constitutional rights by failing to protect them from widespread physical violence and harm.
The office announced the findings from a multi-year investigation. A 94-page report details how the violence in Georgia prisons has become increasingly worse over the past several years.
According to the report, Georgia has the fourth-highest state prison population in the country, with almost 50,000 people incarcerated in 34 state-operated prisons and four private prisons.
Starting in 2016, the United States investigated Georgia’s prisons under the under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act. The probe focused on medium- and close-security facilities.
The report found that understaffing and systemic deficiencies in physical plant, housing and classification, contraband control, and incident reporting and investigations contribute to the widespread violence. The feds also determined that gangs exert improper influence on prison life with impunity, including controlling entire housing units and operating unlawful and dangerous schemes in and from the prisons, harming both incarcerated people and the public.
The report concludes that the GDC’s procedures constitute a pattern or practice of violating incarcerated persons’ constitutional rights under the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by failing to protect those housed at the medium- and close-security levels from widespread physical violence and harm.