News from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Former Gov. Zell Miller is most often remembered for the monumental HOPE Scholarship that sent more Georgia students to college at a minimal cost. A report on the school-to-prison pipeline released Tuesday contends Miller also sent more teens to prison as a result of changes to the juvenile justice system that remain in place today. …
As an ER doctor, I see it all in the prison-hospital-prison pipeline All we had was this empty hall spot. The 4-foot barrier separating the gurneys from the computer workstations had a few opened apple juice containers on top of it from the previous patient. I grabbed them and tossed them in the trash and …
Rare killings of women come to light as Georgia prisons set homicide record When a prisoner at Lee Arrendale State Prison was found dead in her cell this spring, Hallie Reed called her mother in a panic. Reed was in the same mental health unit as the dead woman, Sherry Joyce, and she told her …
Death behind bars: Here’s how Georgia prisoners are being killed Georgia prisons saw an unprecedented 38 homicides in 2023, topping the previous record of 31 the year before. This year’s death toll has already set another horrific record. At least 44 people have been homicide victims so far in 2024. Among the recent homicides is …
A Baldwin County jury found three former correctional officers guilty Wednesday in a trial that exposed a scheme to smuggle drugs and cellphones into a privately operated state prison. Natashia Seals, Tierra Harrison and Shanell Brown, who all worked at Riverbend Correctional Facility in Milledgeville, were found guilty of trading with inmates, making a false …
Georgia preps for fight as feds expose horrific prison conditions One by one they stepped to the podium in a spare room at the Richard Russell federal building in Atlanta, the Justice Department’s top civil rights official and all three of Georgia’s U.S. attorneys. They used different words and offered up their own disturbing examples, …
A federal investigation has uncovered stunning violence, rampant sexual assaults, gang-run facilities and other startling conditions in an out-of-control Georgia state prison system, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Tuesday. “The findings report we issue today lays bare the horrific and inhumane conditions that people are confined to inside Georgia’s state prison system…,” said Assistant …
Americans rely on our justice system to hold those accountable who violate the law and cause harm to their fellow citizens. But who is responsible for holding the justice system accountable when it falls short of its own standards? Recently, Congress provided a partial answer by overwhelmingly passing the bipartisan Federal Prison Oversight Act. The …
Editor’s note: This story was updated in August 2024 to include information on several additional drug trafficking networks prosecuted in 2023-2024. Editor’s note: This story was updated in August 2024 to include information on several additional drug trafficking networks prosecuted in 2023-2024. When federal prosecutors announced their massive Operation Ghost Busted case, the charges revealed …
The reports and books on prison reform could fill a small library, so it seems odd to offer to the Georgia Department of Corrections, the Georgia Legislature and the governor suggestions on how to improve conditions within our state’s prisons. Surely, they’ve heard it all before, including from us, time and time again. Advocates have …