Violence & Safety

An Unrelenting Rise in Fatal Violence

Between 2018 and 2023, Georgia’s state prisons recorded 142 homicides, as documented in the DOJ Investigation of Georgia Prisons: Violence, Safety & Constitutional Violations. The trajectory has been sharply upward: 48 people were killed from 2018 to 2020, then 94 from 2021 to 2023 — a 95.8% increase (Who Is Responsible for Violence in Georgia's Prisons? An Evidence-Based Analysis). In 2023 alone, at least 38 homicides occurred, the highest number in the South (Who Is Responsible for Violence). That year, 5 homicides struck four different facilities in a single month (Prison Classification Systems & Violence: Misclassification, Overclassification, and Safety Failures).

The Southern Center for Human Rights told the 2024 Senate Study Committee that from 2010 to 2014, 33 homicides occurred in GDC facilities — a number that now appears low compared to the bloodshed that followed. January through September 2020 alone saw 21 people killed and 19 suicides, according to testimony before the committee, a grim precursor to the surge in fatal violence that would define the years ahead.

The 2024 death toll diverges starkly between official and independent counts. The Georgia Department of Corrections acknowledged 66 homicides (Gang Separation as Violence Reduction Strategy: Georgia vs. Other States), but Georgia Prisoners’ Speak independently confirmed at least 100 (Who Is Responsible for Violence). This discrepancy itself is evidence of the systemic misreporting the DOJ has condemned. The Senate committee heard concerns that GDC has stopped issuing press releases on in‑custody deaths and has removed the manner of death from its mortality review reports, further obscuring the true toll. The prison death rate overall climbed 47% from 2019 to 2024 — from 2.8 to 4.1 per 100,000 — while assaults on inmates rose 54% and assaults on staff 77% in the same window (Staffing Crisis & Correctional Officer Turnover). Georgia incarcerates nearly 50,000 people (DOJ Investigation; Senate Study Committee, August 2024), making it the fourth-largest state prison system in the nation and the seventh-highest incarceration rate globally (Recidivism & Reentry Failures in Georgia). The violence has turned Georgia’s prisons into what GPS researchers describe as “warehouses of death.”

The December 2024 system-wide assessment by Team Guidehouse quantified the staffing collapse behind this crisis: GDC’s workforce shrank by 2,772 between 2019 and 2023, leaving just 6,830 staff to oversee approximately 49,000 incarcerated people. The resulting emergency-level vacancies have left facilities dangerously under‑resourced, directly fueling the rise in fatal and non-fatal violence (Guidehouse System-Wide Assessment of the Georgia Department of Corrections, December 2024).

The DOJ’s Damning Findings: Constitutional Violations

The U.S. Department of Justice’s October 2024 investigation of Georgia’s prisons (DOJ Investigation of Georgia Prisons: Violence, Safety & Constitutional Violations) concluded that the state is violating the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. The DOJ documented 142 homicides in just five years, alongside a breakdown of basic security: between November 2021 and August 2023, GDC recovered 27,425 weapons, 12,483 cellphones, and 2,016 illegal drug items, and recorded 262 drone sightings exploiting unsecured airspace (DOJ Investigation). The investigation also found that sexual violence reporting is deeply unreliable — 456 allegations of sexual abuse in 2022 yielded only 35 substantiations, a 7.7% substantiation rate that signals a culture of disbelief or deliberate cover-up (Sexual Violence & PREA Compliance in Georgia Prisons). The subsequent Guidehouse assessment corroborated these security failures, noting that pervasive lock failures are directly facilitating contraband and Security Threat Group (STG) activity (Guidehouse System-Wide Assessment, December 2024).

Reforms T

The systemic violence and staffing crises documented in Georgia’s prisons have prompted a search for effective solutions. While Georgia has yet to adopt widespread reforms, a growing body of evidence from other states and correctional systems demonstrates that targeted policy changes can dramatically reduce violence, restore safety, and save taxpayer dollars. The following research-based strategies, drawn from the Comparative Solutions Evidence Base compiled by the Brennan Center and other sources, offer a roadmap for Georgia.

Staffing: Competitive Pay and Active Recruitment The staffing collapse identified by Guidehouse is not irreversible. Pennsylvania cut its correctional‑officer vacancy rate from 10.5% to 4.8% in just two years by creating a dedicated recruitment division, holding over 750 job fairs in 2024, and setting trainee starting salaries at $46,986—rising to $49,156 as an officer (Comparative Solutions Evidence Base). Alabama, after a similarly dire shortage, raised new trainee starting salaries to approximately $57,000 and created a Senior Correctional Officer classification; resignations dropped by 28%, and the Alabama Department of Corrections avoided an estimated $7.9 million to $10 million in voluntary‑turnover costs since fiscal year 2019 (Comparative Solutions Evidence Base). These examples show that competitive pay and aggressive recruitment can reverse the staffing free‑fall that GDC’s own assessment linked to security breakdowns.

Violence Reduction Through Unit Design and Programming Facility design and staff‑resident relationships have a proven impact on safety. The “Little Scandinavia” unit at SCI Chester in Pennsylvania, which runs a 1:8 officer‑to‑resident ratio (compared to 1:128 in the rest of the facility), had virtually no violent episodes in 2024, even as the state’s prisons overall saw a 21.6% increase in violence (Comparative Solutions Evidence Base). The renovation cost was modest—about $300,000—and the per‑inmate daily cost is roughly 1.5 times that of double‑celling, yet the safety benefits are enormous. Similarly, a randomized trial of the Vera Institute’s Restoring Promise program in South Carolina, which emphasizes de‑escalation and staff‑resident relationships, found a 73% reduction in the odds of violent incidents and an 83% reduction in the odds of restrictive‑housing stays (Comparative Solutions Evidence Base).

Reducing the Use of Solitary Confinement Georgia’s extensive use of solitary confinement has drawn criticism, but evidence from other states demonstrates that it can be sharply curtailed without endangering safety. Following the Ashker settlement, California reduced its statewide Security Housing Unit population by 65%—from 9,870 in 2012 to 3,471 in 2016—and cut the long‑term isolation unit at Pelican Bay from 513 to just 2, a 99.6% reduction, with no reported surge in violence (Comparative Solutions Evidence Base). North Dakota achieved a 74.28% reduction in solitary confinement use between 2016 and 2020, and one facility saw a 99% drop in the monthly rate of solitary sanctions (Comparative Solutions Evidence Base). Oregon also recorded reductions of 55.7% to 73.9% over comparable periods (Comparative Solutions Evidence Base). These outcomes directly challenge the claim that solitary confinement is necessary for institutional security.

Compassionate and Geriatric Release Georgia’s aging prison population consumes disproportionate resources while posing a low risk to public safety. The ACLU estimates that releasing an aging prisoner saves states an average of $66,294 per year, with a minimum of at least $28,362 (Comparative Solutions Evidence Base). Recidivism data supports this approach: the U.S. Sentencing Commission found that offenders over 50 have an eight‑year rearrest rate of 21.3%—less than half the 53.4% rate for those under 50 (Comparative Solutions Evidence Base). In Massachusetts, a study of 2019 releases found three‑year recidivism for women aged 55 and older at just 10%, and 12% for men in the same age group (Comparative Solutions Evidence Base). Yet 45 states and the federal government have compassionate or geriatric release laws that remain underused due to political and procedural barriers. Expanding these pathways in Georgia would reduce overcrowding, ease health‑care costs, and remove low‑risk individuals from violent, under‑staffed environments.

Independent Oversight and Accountability The DOJ’s findings of systemic constitutional violations underscore the need for trustworthy, external accountability. New Jersey’s independent corrections ombudsperson, established by the Dignity Act, costs approximately $2.8 million per year with 26 staff—yet it holds subpoena power, unannounced inspection authority, and the right to confidential communication with incarcerated people (Comparative Solutions Evidence Base). This is a fraction of the cost of a single conditions lawsuit: the Ashker settlement plaintiffs’ attorney fees alone exceeded $4.5 million, not counting years of monitoring (Comparative Solutions Evidence Base). An independent oversight body in Georgia could provide the transparency and accountability that GDC’s self‑reporting has failed to deliver, deterring the misreporting of deaths and sexual abuse that the Senate study committee has highlighted.

Strategic Decarceration Finally, the violence crisis cannot be separated from the sheer scale of incarceration. New York State halved its prison population between 1999 and 2023 while its violent crime rate fell 34%, faster than the national 28% decline over the same period (Comparative Solutions Evidence Base). Likewise, the U.S. prison population declined by 25% between 2009 and 2021 even as violent crime reported to police fell to half its 1990s level by year‑end 2024 (Comparative Solutions Evidence Base). Georgia’s own prison death rate climbed 47% from 2019 to 2024, even as its incarcerated population held near 50,000. Strategic decarceration—starting with expanded geriatric release, robust reentry programming, and sentencing reform—would relieve the pressure on dangerously under‑staffed facilities and align Georgia with states that have improved both safety and justice.

These evidence‑based measures are not theoretical. They have been tested and proven in jurisdictions across the United States. For Georgia, where the DOJ has declared constitutional violations and the legislature’s own study committee heard alarming testimony of fatal violence and official secrecy, adopting such reforms is not merely a policy choice—it is a legal and moral imperative.