(The Center Square) – Georgia officials are not protecting inmates from physical and sexual violence, which violates the Eighth Amendment, the Department of Justice said in a report Tuesday.
The state Department of Corrections disputed the report, saying the prison system operates in a manner that exceeds the requirements of the U.S. Constitution.
The 93-page report is the culmination of a civil investigation by the Justice Department that looked at the state-owned and private correctional facilities. The report accuses the state of being “deliberately indifferent to these unsafe conditions.”
“The constitutional violations are exacerbated by serious deficiencies in staffing and supervision, physical condition and security of the facilities, classification and housing, management of gangs and other security threat groups, control of weapons and other contraband, and incident reporting, response, and investigations” the report said. “The state has known about the unsafe conditions for years and has failed to take reasonable measures to address them.”
The Justice Department cited the stabbing deaths of two men in their 20s at Bibb County’s Central State Prison in December in its report.
“Between these two deadly stabbings at Central, two other homicides occurred in other prisons,” the report said. “Meanwhile, December also saw stabbings and other serious incidents at other GDC prisons, including Phillips State Prison, where an incarcerated person whom DOJ had interviewed earlier in 2023 required hospitalization on December 17 for six or more stab wounds.”
Members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex are not protected from sexual violence and abuse, according to the report.
“Gangs that run housing units often target LGBTI individuals with physical and sexual violence. LGBTI individuals described being beaten and stabbed by others in their housing unit because of their LGBTI status,” the report said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney General Kristen Clarke called the conditions “horrific and inhumane.”
“People are assaulted stabbed, raped and killed or left to languish inside facilities that are woefully understaffed,” Clarke said. “Inmates are maimed and tortured, relegated to an existence of fear, filth and not so benign neglect. These dangerous conditions not only harm the people Georgia incarcerates – it places prison employees and the broader community at risk.”
The Department of Corrections cooperated with the Justice Department and will continue to do so, the department said in a statement emailed to The Center Square. The report focuses on challenges faced by prison systems across the country, including the federal prison system, the department said.
“As history demonstrates, DOJ’s track record in prison oversight is poor – often entangling systems in years of expensive and unproductive court monitoring,” the Department of Corrections said in its statement. “As merely one example, court monitoring instigated by DOJ at Riker’s Island remains on-going after eight years, despite the fact that New York City employs one jail officer for every inmate at Riker’s Island.”
