DOJ Finds Georgia Prisons Violate the Constitution: 142 People Killed, Staffing at 50%, and a $1.2 Billion System in Crisis

Executive Summary

The U.S. Department of Justice concluded on October 1, 2024, that the State of Georgia and the Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC) violate the Eighth Amendment by failing to protect people in prison from violence and sexual harm. Key findings:

• 142 people were killed in GDC prisons from 2018 through 2023, with homicides nearly doubling (95.8% increase) from the first three years (48) to the latter three years (94). In 2023 alone, 35 people were killed — a record.
• GDC operates on a $1.2 billion annual budget yet maintains correctional officer vacancy rates averaging over 50% systemwide, peaking at 60% in April 2023 with over 2,800 unfilled positions. Ten facilities exceeded 70% vacancy rates.
• Georgia’s prison homicide rate was 34 per 100,000 people in 2019 — nearly triple the national average of 12 per 100,000 for state prisons — and the numbers have increased precipitously since then.
• More than 1,400 violent incidents were reported across close- and medium-security prisons in just 16 months (January 2022–April 2023), with 45.1% resulting in serious injury.
• GDC has spent almost $20 million since 2018 settling claims involving death or injury to people in its custody — costs borne by Georgia taxpayers.

Key Takeaway: The federal government has found reasonable cause that Georgia’s prison system violates the constitutional rights of nearly 50,000 people through systemic failures in staffing, security, and accountability.

Fiscal Impact

Current Budget

GDC operates on a $1.2 billion annual budget to house almost 50,000 people across 34 state-operated and 4 private prisons. Despite this expenditure, the state fails to meet constitutional minimums for safety.

Litigation and Settlement Costs

GDC has spent almost $20 million since 2018 to settle claims involving death or injury to people incarcerated in its prisons. These settlement costs will almost certainly escalate. The DOJ investigation, conducted under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA), opens the door to federal court oversight and a potential consent decree — which historically imposes significant compliance costs on states.

Staffing Crisis as a Fiscal Problem

GDC’s correctional officer vacancy rate hit 60% in April 2023, with over 2,800 vacant positions. The average vacancy rate was 56.3% in 2022 and 52.5% in 2023. This means the state is funding positions it cannot fill while simultaneously bearing the costs of violence that understaffing enables — emergency medical transports (30.5% of violent incidents required offsite medical treatment), homicide investigations, and criminal prosecutions.

Hidden Costs to Other State Agencies

District Attorneys from around the state told DOJ that the proportion of violent crimes originating in prisons has increased in recent years, straining prosecutorial resources. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation and Peace Officer Standards and Training Council also bear costs related to investigating criminal conduct inside GDC facilities. Hundreds of GDC officers have been arrested on criminal charges in the past six years.

Cost of Inaction

Georgia’s prison population has more than doubled since 1990, from just over 21,000 to almost 50,000. Almost 10,000 people are serving life or life without parole; for the remainder, the average sentence is about 26 years. The state has built a system that requires massive ongoing investment to operate safely — and is currently failing to make that investment, generating escalating human and fiscal costs.

Key Takeaway: Georgia taxpayers are already paying $1.2 billion annually for a prison system that kills people at nearly triple the national rate, plus at least $20 million in settlements — costs that will grow without legislative action.

Key Findings

Homicides and Violence

From 2018 through 2023, GDC reported 142 homicides in its prisons. The trajectory is alarming: 7 homicides in 2018, 13 in 2019, 28 in 2020, 28 in 2021, 31 in 2022, and 35 in 2023 — a record. In the first five months of 2024, there were 18 confirmed or suspected homicides. The 95.8% increase from the first three years (48 homicides) to the latter three years (94 homicides) represents a near-doubling of killings. Georgia’s 2019 prison homicide rate of 34 per 100,000 was nearly triple the national average of 12 per 100,000.

From January 2022 through April 2023, there were more than 1,400 reported incidents of violence across close- and medium-security prisons. Of these:
– 19.7% involved a weapon
– 45.1% resulted in serious injury
– 30.5% required offsite medical treatment

Staffing Collapse

GDC’s average correctional officer vacancy rate was 49.3% in 2021, 56.3% in 2022, and 52.5% in 2023. The crisis peaked in April 2023, when the systemwide vacancy rate reached 60% with over 2,800 vacant positions. In December 2023, 18 GDC prisons had vacancy rates over 60%, and 10 of those exceeded 70%. The prison population has more than doubled since 1990 while staffing has declined.

Contraband Proliferation

Between November 2021 and August 2023, GDC recovered 27,425 weapons, 12,483 cellphones, and 2,016 illegal drug items. During the same period, GDC documented 262 drone sightings and 346 fence-line throw-overs. The state has failed to secure its own facilities.

Sexual Violence

GDC documented 635 sexual-abuse allegations in 2022, 639 in 2021, 702 in 2020, and 653 in 2019. In 2022, GDC documented 456 allegations of sexual abuse between incarcerated individuals, of which only 35 were substantiated. Nationally, only 21% of sexual assaults are reported to police — and underreporting is likely even more severe in correctional settings. Nearly 35% of transgender people in state and federal prisons report having been sexually victimized in custody. Non-heterosexual people are victimized at a rate of 12.2% compared to 1.2% for heterosexual people.

Gang Control and Housing Breakdown

GDC has more than 14,000 validated gang members in the system. At one large medium-security prison, DOJ found that approximately 67% of individuals surveyed were standing in front of cells other than those assigned to them. Gangs often dictate housing arrangements, extort people and their families, and direct violence.

Investigation Failures

GDC systematically fails to investigate violence. Less than 10% of fights and less than 23% of assaults between incarcerated people were forwarded for investigation. Even for incidents involving serious injury, less than 12% were investigated; for incidents involving a weapon, less than 6% were investigated. A May 2022 external audit found that zero of 388 PREA investigations met all applicable standards.

Staff Corruption

In the past six years, hundreds of GDC officers have been arrested on criminal charges arising from acts in or related to prisons, with the vast majority contraband-related. Others involved violence, extortion, or sexual assault.

Grievance System Failure

In approximately six months of 2023, GDC documented 1,481 grievance appeals, of which approximately 480 (about 32%) were rejected for procedural reasons without addressing the substance of complaints — even when those complaints raised serious safety concerns.

Aging Infrastructure

The average GDC prison is over 30 years old. People in prison and staff report that individuals regularly manipulate cell-door locks to exit cells unauthorized. Many cameras are non-functional or not monitored.

Key Takeaway: Every major system within GDC — staffing, security infrastructure, investigations, contraband control, housing classification, and grievance processes — is failing simultaneously, creating conditions the federal government has found to be unconstitutional.

Comparable States

The DOJ report provides limited but significant comparative data:

• Georgia’s 2019 prison homicide rate of 34 per 100,000 was nearly triple the national average of 12 per 100,000 for state prisons, according to Bureau of Justice Statistics data. This is the most recent available national comparison.
• Georgia is the eighth most populous state and has the fourth-highest state prison population in the United States.
• DOJ noted that national mortality data from comparable states “strongly suggest that Georgia’s homicide rate has consistently been much higher than can be explained by GDC’s population trends.”
• The PREA Standards (28 C.F.R. part 115), which apply to all state prison systems nationally, require zero tolerance for sexual abuse. GDC’s May 2022 external audit found that zero of 388 PREA investigations met all applicable standards — a finding that places Georgia as an outlier in compliance.

The source document does not provide detailed state-by-state comparisons of staffing ratios, contraband recovery rates, or violence metrics beyond the national homicide rate average.

Key Takeaway: Georgia’s prison homicide rate is nearly triple the national average, placing it as a significant outlier among state prison systems.

Policy Recommendations

Based on the DOJ’s findings and the evidence in this report, the following legislative actions are warranted:

1. Emergency Staffing Appropriation and Accountability

• Appropriate emergency funding to address the 2,800+ correctional officer vacancies through competitive compensation, retention bonuses, and recruitment infrastructure.
• Require GDC to report quarterly to the General Assembly on vacancy rates by facility, with mandatory corrective action plans when any facility exceeds 40% vacancy.
• Commission an independent staffing analysis to determine the minimum safe staffing levels for each facility.

2. Independent Oversight and Transparency

• Establish a legislatively authorized independent oversight body with unannounced inspection authority, subpoena power, and public reporting requirements.
• Mandate public reporting of all homicides, serious assaults, sexual abuse allegations, and contraband recoveries on a quarterly basis.
• Require GDC to cooperate fully with DOJ’s investigation, including timely document production.

3. Violence Investigation and Accountability Reform

• Mandate that all incidents involving weapons, serious injury, or sexual abuse be referred for formal investigation — closing the gap where less than 6% of weapon incidents and less than 12% of serious-injury incidents are currently investigated.
• Require external investigation of all homicides and suspected homicides in GDC custody.
• Fund and staff the Office of Professional Standards commensurate with actual investigative needs.

4. PREA Compliance and LGBTI Protections

• Require GDC to implement individualized housing assessments for transgender people, consistent with PREA Standards, rather than housing based solely on external genitalia.
• Mandate independent PREA audits with public reporting and legislative review of corrective action plans.
• Appropriate funding for Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) access at all facilities.

5. Infrastructure and Security Investment

• Fund a comprehensive assessment of security infrastructure — locks, doors, cameras, fencing — at all 38 facilities, given that the average prison is over 30 years old.
• Prioritize replacement of non-functional locking mechanisms and surveillance systems.
• Establish capital improvement timelines with legislative reporting requirements.

6. Contraband Interdiction

• Fund counter-drone technology and perimeter security upgrades to address the 262 drone sightings and 346 fence-line throw-overs documented in 21 months.
• Strengthen criminal penalties and internal accountability for staff involvement in contraband smuggling.

7. Grievance System Reform

• Prohibit GDC from rejecting grievances on procedural grounds when they raise safety or constitutional concerns.
• Require an independent review of grievances alleging violence, sexual abuse, or threats to life.

8. Population Reduction Strategies

• Review sentencing and parole policies in light of the fact that Georgia’s prison population has more than doubled since 1990 while the state has failed to build the infrastructure or hire the staff to safely manage this population.
• Expand earned-time credits, parole eligibility, and community supervision alternatives to reduce the population to levels the state can constitutionally manage.

Key Takeaway: Legislators have both the authority and the obligation to act — through appropriations, oversight mandates, and systemic reform — before federal courts impose remedies the state does not control.

Read the Source Document

Read the full DOJ Investigation of Georgia Prisons (October 1, 2024) — PDF

This findings report was issued by the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, and the U.S. Attorney’s Offices for the Northern, Middle, and Southern Districts of Georgia, pursuant to the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 1997 et seq.

Other Versions

• Public Version — Plain-language summary for community members and families
• Media Version — Press-ready briefing with key statistics and context