The Georgia Department of Corrections is on track to see its deadliest year ever, with 156 deaths, including at least 24 homicides, during the first six months of 2024.
Mortality data obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution shows deaths inside state correctional facilities from all causes have been rising during the first half of each year since 2020. The number of such deaths in the first half of this year even exceeds the number of prisoner deaths during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. In all of 2020, the prison system reported 272 deaths, the most on record dating back to 2001; in the first six months of that year, 116 prisoners died.