On October 5, 2025, inside a state prison in Baldwin County, a man was allegedly held against his will and sexually assaulted by two fellow prisoners. Last week, a Baldwin County grand jury indicted Roger Renard Walker and Jason Jerome Hambrick on two counts each of aggravated sodomy, two counts each of aggravated assault, and one count each of false imprisonment 1. Both men are presumed innocent unless proven guilty. The case was investigated by Georgia Department of Corrections investigators — which makes it unusual. Not because the assault was unusual, but because it produced an indictment.
Between 2014 and 2024, people inside Georgia’s prisons reported sexual abuse or sexual harassment 15,542 times. The Georgia Department of Corrections substantiated 543 of those allegations — about 3.5 percent 2. During the same period, every single one of the department’s published facility audits under the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act came back clean. Not one facility failed. Not one standard, at one prison, in one audit cycle, was ever marked “not met.”
Then, in October 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice — after visiting 17 Georgia prisons with a team that included certified PREA auditors — reached the opposite conclusion. Sexual abuse in Georgia’s prisons, the DOJ found, is “rampant” 3.
Both records cannot be true. This is the story of the gap between them — and of the people who live inside it.
What Georgia’s Own Numbers Show
The GDC publishes an annual PREA report, as federal standards require. GPS compiled all eleven available reports, from 2014 through 2024, into a single database. The pattern they reveal is not subtle.
Reported allegations peaked at 2,421 in 2017 and have fallen every year since, down to 817 in 2024 4. On paper, that looks like progress. But the decline is driven almost entirely by one category: reports against staff. Allegations of staff-on-inmate sexual harassment fell from 872 in 2017 to just 70 in 2024 — a 92 percent drop. Allegations of prisoner-on-prisoner sexual abuse did not fall at all. There were 494 in 2017 and 503 in 2024, making up 62 percent of all allegations last year 5.
This happened during the same years that Georgia’s prisons hemorrhaged staff, gangs took operational control of housing units, and homicides climbed to record levels. GPS has documented how the staffing collapse is concealed and what happens to prisoners who report abuse. A shrinking count of reports against staff, in a system where reporting itself is dangerous, is not evidence that abuse declined. The DOJ reached the same conclusion, warning that its count of 2,629 sexual abuse allegations from 2019 through 2022 was likely an undercount because victims fear retaliation 3.
Then there is the substantiation rate. Across eleven years, GDC’s investigations confirmed 543 of 15,542 allegations — 3.5 percent, ranging from 0.8 percent in 2014 to 7.0 percent in 2023. The other 96.5 percent were classified as unsubstantiated, unfounded, or outside PREA’s scope.
The DOJ examined how those classifications get made. In one case it documented, a gay man reported that his cellmate sexually assaulted him after gang members ordered the cellmate to drive him out of the dorm. Both men confirmed that sexual contact occurred. There was evidence the victim had been tied up. GDC classified the allegation as unsubstantiated 3. In another, from March 2021, a transgender woman in protective custody reported that a man ordered her to perform oral sex through the chow port of her cell door in exchange for her meal tray. The man admitted to putting his penis through the chow port. The DOJ found no evidence GDC took any administrative action.
The Audits That Never Fail
Under federal PREA standards, every prison must be audited by a certified auditor once every three years, measured against roughly 40 to 45 national standards. GDC has published 273 facility audit reports spanning five audit cycles going back to 2015.
GPS loaded every one of those reports into a database and searched for a single instance — any facility, any cycle, any standard — where an auditor marked a standard “not met.”
There are none. Two hundred seventy-three audits. Zero failures. Zero standards not met, anywhere, ever 6.
Set that record beside what federal investigators found when they walked the same buildings:
“Sexual abuse occurs throughout Georgia’s prisons at all security levels and in all types of housing units. Georgia fails to protect incarcerated persons from this abuse… The State also fails to adequately protect people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) from a substantial risk of serious harm from sexual violence and abuse by staff and other incarcerated people.” 3
The contradiction runs deeper than one report against another. The federal government has a mechanism for holding states accountable to PREA: each year, every governor must either certify to the DOJ that all facilities under their control fully comply with the standards, or accept financial consequences 7. Georgia’s governors have never submitted a certification of full compliance. In fiscal year 2017, then-Governor Nathan Deal instead filed an “assurance” — a formal acknowledgment that Georgia was not in full compliance, paired with a pledge to work toward it 8.
Hold those three facts together. The auditors GDC arranges find perfect compliance, 273 times in a row. The state’s own governors decline to certify that compliance to the federal government. And federal investigators, walking the same corridors, find sexual abuse “rampant.” The audit system is not measuring safety. It is manufacturing paper.
Ashley Diamond Lived in the Gap
No single case exposes the distance between Georgia’s paperwork and Georgia’s prisons like that of Ashley Diamond.
Diamond, a Black transgender woman from Rome, Georgia, entered GDC custody in 2012 on a nonviolent conviction. She was housed in men’s facilities. According to the federal lawsuit she filed in February 2015, she was sexually assaulted at least eight times, and GDC terminated the hormone therapy she had been prescribed for 17 years under the department’s then-existing “freeze frame” policy, which locked prisoners’ medical care to whatever they received at intake. Her gender dysphoria became so acute she attempted self-castration 9.
Her case, Diamond v. Ward, forced results that a decade of internal audits never did:
- GDC rescinded the freeze frame policy and began allowing hormone therapy for transgender prisoners.
- Diamond was released and received a $250,000 settlement in 2016 10.
- Her case prompted the DOJ to open its 2016 investigation into whether Georgia protects LGBTI prisoners from sexual abuse — the inquiry that grew into the statewide investigation and the 2024 findings report.
Then Georgia sent her back. In 2019, Diamond was reincarcerated on a technical parole violation — and placed in men’s facilities again. Her second lawsuit, filed in November 2020, alleged she was sexually assaulted more than 14 times in a single year. It further alleged that an officer locked her in an office on consecutive days to sexually harass her, that another officer announced her transgender status to an entire dormitory and called her “a freak,” and that GDC designated her a “sexual aggressor” — a label her attorneys said was false — to justify refusing her transfer to a women’s facility 10. The DOJ took the extraordinary step of filing a Statement of Interest supporting her position in April 2021 11. Diamond was released on parole in August 2022, and the suit was voluntarily dismissed in January 2023 12.
Diamond’s experience is not an outlier. Research on California prisons found that 41 percent of transgender prisoners reported sexual assault, compared to 2 percent of the general prison population — a twentyfold difference 13. And the DOJ found that Georgia has learned almost nothing from her case. Despite PREA Standard 115.42 explicitly prohibiting housing decisions based solely on genital anatomy, investigators found no known reports of GDC ever relying on any other factor when housing transgender people. Gangs that control housing units, the DOJ found, specifically target LGBTI prisoners for physical and sexual violence. In 2025, rather than strengthening protections, the Georgia legislature moved in the opposite direction, passing SB 185 to ban gender-affirming care for prisoners.
Why the System Cannot Police Itself
If the audits are hollow and the internal investigations bury complaints, what is left? For most survivors, remarkably little.
The courts have narrowed the path. In Cox v. Nobles, the Eleventh Circuit — the federal appeals court covering Georgia — held that a violation of PREA is not, by itself, a violation of the Constitution. Ronald Cox, a transgender woman assaulted at three separate Georgia prisons, lost her case because she could not prove that specific officials both knew of and disregarded the specific risk to her 14. PREA itself created no right for prisoners to sue. A prison can violate the very standards its auditors certify, and the violation alone opens no courthouse door.
Prosecution is rare. The Baldwin County indictment that opened this article represents the system working as designed — and it stands out against the sheer volume of allegations. In 2024 alone, GDC logged 503 allegations of prisoner-on-prisoner sexual abuse; publicly reported indictments arising from them are rare by comparison.
Federal enforcement has stalled. The DOJ’s findings report gave Georgia 82 minimum remedial measures and warned that the Attorney General could file suit. As of this writing — 21 months later — no enforcement action has been filed, no consent decree entered, and no public remediation agreement announced.
And the failure is not GDC’s alone. The General Assembly and the Governor set the budgets, the staffing levels, and the laws that produced dorms without officers, and GDC has declined even zero-cost measures within its existing authority — like [separating rival gangs](https://gps.press/separate-the-gangs-it-costs-nothing/) from the people they prey on — that would reduce the violence in which sexual abuse thrives.That leaves the pressure where it has always been: on survivors willing to speak, on families willing to demand answers, and on the public record GPS and others are building one document at a time.
Call to Action: What You Can Do
You just read how 273 audits found perfect compliance while the DOJ found rampant sexual abuse. Ashley Diamond was assaulted 14 times in one year after the state already paid her $250,000 for failing to protect her the first time. Sharing this story is the least you can do.
Spread the Word — It Takes One Click
Awareness without action changes nothing. Here’s how you can help push for accountability and real reform:
Join the GPS Advocacy Network — Sign up at https://gps.press/become-an-advocate/ and we’ll advocate on your behalf every week. GPS identifies your state legislators, crafts personalized letters on the most pressing prison issues, and sends them directly to the representatives who represent you. You receive a copy of every letter. It takes two minutes to sign up — we handle the rest.
Send a 60-Second Message — Pick an issue, get a ready-to-edit message with the verified facts already in it, and email your state House representative and senator directly from your own inbox at https://gps.press/send-a-message/. No signup, nothing stored — it takes about a minute.
Tell My Story — Are you or a loved one affected by Georgia’s prison system? GPS publishes first-person accounts from incarcerated people and their families. Submit your story at https://gps.press/category/tellmystory/ and help the world understand what’s really happening behind the walls.
Contact Your Representatives — Your state legislators control GDC’s budget, oversight, and the laws that created these failures. Find your Georgia legislators at https://gps.press/find-your-legislator/ or call Governor Kemp at (404) 656-1776 or the GDC Commissioner at (478) 992-5246.
Demand Media Coverage — Contact newsrooms at the AJC, local TV stations, and national criminal justice outlets. More coverage means more pressure.
Amplify on Social Media — Share this article and tag @GovKemp, @GDC_Georgia, and your local representatives. Use #GAPrisons, #PrisonReform, #GeorgiaPrisonerSpeak.
File Public Records Requests — Georgia’s Open Records Act gives every citizen the right to request incident reports, death records, staffing data, medical logs, and financial documents at https://georgiadcor.govqa.us/WEBAPP/_rs/SupportHome.aspx.
Attend Public Meetings — The Georgia Board of Corrections and legislative committees hold public meetings. Your presence is noticed.
Contact the Department of Justice — File civil rights complaints at https://civilrights.justice.gov. Federal oversight has forced abusive systems to change before.
Support Organizations Doing This Work — Donate to or volunteer with Georgia-based prison reform groups fighting for change on the ground.
Vote — Research candidates’ positions on criminal justice. Primary elections often determine outcomes in Georgia.
Contact GPS — If you have information about conditions inside Georgia’s prisons, reach us securely at GPS.press.
Part of Something Bigger
This article is part of the GPS Reform Agenda — two active campaigns to transform Georgia’s criminal justice system.
End the Warehouse THIS SERIES
Transform Georgia’s prisons from punishment to rehabilitation. Two tracks: litigation to reduce overcrowding + evidence-based programs that work.
Three model bills for the 2027 Georgia legislature. The legislature doesn’t need new laws — it needs to enforce two dormant statutes it already passed.
Read the full GPS Reform Agenda →
Further Reading
The Abuse Provision: Georgia’s Forgotten Prison Clause
Georgia’s constitution has prohibited the abuse of prisoners since 1868 — a largely untested legal tool for challenging exactly the conditions documented here.
The Punishment for Speaking Up in Georgia’s Prisons
Why so few victims report: what happens to incarcerated people who file grievances and speak to investigators.
Two Commanders Say Georgia Hides Its Prison Staffing Crisis
The staffing collapse that leaves dorms unsupervised — and the official numbers that conceal it.
Who Are the Victims: The Statute That Erases Them
How Georgia law defines crime victims in ways that exclude people victimized inside prison walls.
Who Are the Victims: Victims Still
A person’s conviction does not erase their right to be protected from violence — the case for counting in-custody victims.
GPS Intelligence System
The GPS Intelligence System maintains living research profiles that aggregate data, news, settlements, and analysis on Georgia’s prisons and the issues defining them. The profiles below provide deeper context for the issues raised in this article:
Sexual Abuse in Georgia Prisons
A living profile aggregating PREA data, DOJ findings, litigation, and reporting on sexual violence across GDC facilities.
Tracking the DOJ investigation, remedial measures, and the accountability mechanisms that have — and have not — been enforced.
Explore the Data
GPS makes GDC statistics accessible to the public through several resources:
- GPS Statistics Portal — Interactive dashboards translating complex GDC reports into accessible formats, updated within days of official releases.
- GPS Lighthouse AI — Ask questions about Georgia’s prison system and get answers drawn from GPS’s investigative archive and data analysis.
- GPS llms.txt — A single machine-readable index of every GPS data resource, published using the open llms.txt standard. Point any AI tool (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity) at this URL and the model can navigate to facility profiles, intelligence briefs, mortality records, statistics, and the full investigative archive — no other configuration needed. It is the fastest way to ground an AI conversation in verified GPS data.
For a walkthrough of how to put these resources to work with AI, see How to Use GPS Data with AI Tools — a step-by-step guide for researchers, advocates, families, and journalists analyzing Georgia prison conditions, statistics, and policy with tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.
Contact GPS at media@gps.press for access to underlying datasets used in this analysis.
About Georgia Prisoners’ Speak (GPS)
Georgia Prisoners’ Speak (GPS) is a nonprofit investigative newsroom built in partnership with incarcerated reporters, families, advocates, and data analysts. Operating independently from the Georgia Department of Corrections, GPS documents the truth the state refuses to acknowledge: extreme violence, fatal medical neglect, gang-controlled dorms, collapsed staffing, fraudulent reporting practices, and unconstitutional conditions across Georgia’s prisons.
Through confidential reporting channels, secure communication, evidence verification, public-records requests, legislative research, and professional investigative standards, GPS provides the transparency the system lacks. Our mission is to expose abuses, protect incarcerated people, support families, and push Georgia toward meaningful reform based on human rights, evidence, and public accountability.
Every article is part of a larger fight — to end the silence, reveal the truth, and demand justice.
The Architecture Is the Evidence
Georgia built prisons for 24,657. They warehouse 52,771.
Dorms tripled. Cells double- and triple-bunked. Medical, kitchens, libraries — unchanged. Every facility, every design figure, every source.
See the receipts →- The Union-Recorder, “Grand jury indicts 5 men on sex crimes in Baldwin Co.”, July 18, 2026, https://unionrecorder.com/2026/07/18/grand-jury-indicts-5-men-on-sex-crimes-in-baldwin-co/ [↩]
- GDC PREA Annual Reports 2014–2024, https://gdc.georgia.gov/document/prea-annual-report/2024-prea-annual-report-0/download [↩]
- U.S. DOJ Findings Report, Investigation of Georgia Prisons, October 1, 2024, https://www.justice.gov/d9/2024-09/findings_report_-_investigation_of_georgia_prisons.pdf [↩][↩][↩][↩]
- GDC 2017 PREA Annual Report, https://gdc.georgia.gov/document/prea-annual-report/2017-prea-annual-report/download [↩]
- GDC 2024 PREA Annual Report, https://gdc.georgia.gov/document/prea-annual-report/2024-prea-annual-report-0/download [↩]
- GDC PREA Audit Reports, Cycles 1–5, Georgia Department of Corrections, https://gdc.georgia.gov/document/prea-annual-report/2024-prea-annual-report-0/download [↩]
- Bureau of Justice Assistance, PREA Overview, https://bja.ojp.gov/program/prea/overview [↩]
- BJA FY 2017 List of PREA Certification and Assurance Submissions, https://bja.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh186/files/media/document/fy17-prea-certification-assurance-submissions.pdf [↩]
- SPLC, Ashley Diamond v. Brian Owens et al. case docket, https://www.splcenter.org/resources/civil-rights-case-docket/ashley-diamond-v-brian-owens-et-al/ [↩]
- Prison Legal News, December 29, 2020, https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2020/dec/29/transgender-georgia-prisoner-files-second-lawsuit-over-lack-treatment-sexual-assaults-after-winning-250000-settlement-same-issues/ [↩][↩]
- DOJ Statement of Interest in Diamond v. Ward, April 22, 2021, https://ccrjustice.org/sites/default/files/attach/2021/04/65_4-22-21_DOJ-SOI_w.pdf [↩]
- The 19th, January 18, 2023, https://19thnews.org/2023/01/ashley-diamond-lawsuit-trans-people-prison-georgia/ [↩]
- Health Implications of Housing Assignments for Incarcerated Transgender Women, PMC, 2020, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7144448/ [↩]
- Cox v. Nobles, 15 F.4th 1350 (11th Cir. 2021), https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-11th-circuit/2149616.html [↩]