Sexual Abuse

DOJ Investigation: Rampant Sexual Violence Confirmed System-Wide

In October 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice released a 94-page report on conditions inside Georgia's state prison system — the culmination of an investigation that had expanded in September 2021 to specifically assess violence protection and LGBTQ+ prisoner safety. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke described conditions as 'horrific and inhumane,' stating that people were being 'assaulted, stabbed, raped and killed' in facilities that are 'woefully understaffed.' The report documented rampant sexual assaults as a systemic feature of Georgia's prisons, not an aberration.

The DOJ's findings described 'near-constant life-threatening violence functioning as the norm,' with gang-run facilities where institutional control had effectively collapsed. Sexual violence was identified alongside torture, starvation, and riots as part of a pattern of conditions the DOJ characterized as unconstitutional. Critically, the report concluded that these violations were 'not isolated incidents but long-standing, systemic violations stemming from a culture of indifference to the safety and security of people Georgia holds in its prisons.' The GDC responded to these findings with defiance and denial.

The DOJ's investigation covered approximately half of Georgia's state prisons and included hundreds of inmate interviews. Its findings on sexual violence encompassed both staff-on-incarcerated abuse and peer-on-peer assaults enabled by the absence of meaningful supervision. The report's release followed years of advocacy by GPS and other organizations documenting individual cases that, taken together, constitute the systemic pattern the federal government has now confirmed on the record.

Staff-Perpetrated Sexual Abuse: Arrests Across the System

Staff-on-prisoner sexual abuse is not confined to a single facility or bad actor — it represents a documented pattern across Georgia's prison system. In May 2024, two high-ranking GDC employees were arrested within 24 hours of each other on charges of sexual contact with incarcerated people. Alonzo L. McMillian, the deputy warden for administration at Pulaski State Prison, was arrested on May 2, 2024, on charges that he had a 'sexual relationship' with a prisoner, with the warrant specifying sexual contact on February 24 and 25, 2024. He was booked into Pulaski County jail and released the following day on a $10,000 bond. Russell Edwin Clark, a lieutenant at Lee Arrendale State Prison — the largest of Georgia's four prisons for women — was arrested on May 1, 2024, on charges that he fondled a prisoner's breast and kissed her under a dormitory stairwell, in an area specifically described as outside camera coverage.

Both men were terminated on May 2, 2024. Their arrests came as the GDC was already managing mounting scandals involving officers smuggling drugs and contraband. The GDC spokesperson's statement that 'the vast majority of our staff are dedicated to their oath' and that violators are 'immediately terminated and prosecuted' stands in tension with the breadth of documented cases — and does nothing to address why supervisory-level staff were able to abuse prisoners under their authority.

In August 2025, two more GDC employees — 23-year-old Raymond Mills and 32-year-old Matthew Posey — were charged with rape following an alleged sexual assault at a Hampton Inn in Douglasville. Both men were held without bond and suspended without pay pending investigation. The GDC stated it was cooperating with local law enforcement. The off-premises nature of this incident illustrates that the culture of predatory conduct among some GDC personnel extends beyond facility walls.

The case of David Cassady, incarcerated for nearly 40 years, offers a long-term view of what unchecked staff abuse can produce. Court filings document that Cassady suffered sexual assault at the hands of a corrections officer, pursued a civil suit against that officer, and spent months in solitary confinement — a pattern of abuse, retaliation, and institutional failure that court records link to his eventual escalation to mailing pipe bombs to government offices. His case illustrates how unaddressed sexual violence can compound over decades within a system that offers no genuine accountability.

Systemic Obstruction: When Reporting Abuse Brings Retaliation

One of the most consistent findings across GPS reporting on sexual abuse in Georgia's prisons is that the formal mechanisms for reporting it are routinely obstructed or weaponized. The Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), passed in the 1990s ostensibly to curb frivolous lawsuits, requires prisoners to exhaust all administrative grievance remedies before filing suit in federal court. In practice, GPS and legal advocates have documented that grievance forms are denied, deadlines are manipulated, and officers retaliate against prisoners who attempt to report abuse — leaving serious sexual assault claims buried before they ever reach a courtroom.

In June 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark 5–4 ruling that directly addressed this obstruction. The case arose from a Michigan prisoner's claim that he was sexually assaulted by a prison official and then actively prevented from filing a grievance in retaliation. The Court held that if prison officials deliberately obstruct the grievance process, prisoners cannot be penalized for failing to complete it — and may be entitled to a jury trial under the Seventh Amendment. For GPS, this ruling affirms what years of reporting have shown: the grievance system in carceral settings is frequently used not to resolve abuse claims, but to extinguish them.

In Georgia specifically, the obstruction problem is acute. GPS's February 2025 guide on reporting prisoner safety concerns explicitly warns families that 'internal GDC channels are often unresponsive or defensive' and advises simultaneous reporting to the U.S. Department of Justice and the PREA (Prison Rape Elimination Act) Coordinator, among other outside agencies. The guide identifies PREA as the federal framework specifically designed to address sexual abuse in detention — and its existence underscores that the problem is recognized at the federal level, even as the GDC continues to resist meaningful accountability.

Vulnerable Populations: LGBTQ+ Prisoners and Compounding Risk

The DOJ's 2021 expansion of its Georgia prison investigation specifically flagged LGBTQ+ prisoner safety as a target area of concern — a recognition that this population faces compounded risks of sexual violence inside facilities that often lack protective policies or enforcement. The Cassady case illustrates this directly: court filings describe decades of abuse tied explicitly to his sexuality, with the sexual assault by a corrections officer and subsequent retaliation forming part of a documented pattern of targeted abuse against a gay prisoner.

As of April 2026, GDC population data shows 47 inmates in mental health crisis and 1,261 with poorly controlled health conditions — populations that research consistently identifies as at elevated risk of sexual victimization in custodial settings. The current GDC total population stands at 52,804, with an additional 2,440 people waiting in county jails for state prison placement. Overcrowding and backlog pressure create the understaffing and supervision gaps that the DOJ identified as enabling sexual violence. The population is 60.31% Black, a demographic that bears disproportionate representation in the system and in documented abuse cases nationally.

LGBTQ+ prisoners, people with mental illness, and those in close security (currently 13,003 individuals, or 24.30% of the population) face the highest documented risk in environments where gang control substitutes for institutional authority. The DOJ's October 2024 report confirmed that gang-run facilities are a reality in Georgia's prison system — and that staff indifference to who controls housing, movement, and access to vulnerable prisoners is a documented driver of sexual violence.

Institutional Response: Denial, Defiance, and Insufficient Action

The GDC's response to documented sexual abuse has followed a consistent pattern: public statements emphasizing individual terminations and prosecutions while denying systemic responsibility. When the DOJ released its October 2024 findings, GDC officials responded with what the Atlanta Journal-Constitution described as 'defiance and denial,' characterizing the federal findings as unfair. This posture — despite the DOJ documenting conditions across approximately half the state's prisons — reflects an institutional culture that Assistant Attorney General Clarke explicitly described as 'indifference to the safety and security' of incarcerated people.

In the May 2024 deputy warden and lieutenant arrests, the GDC spokesperson emphasized swift action after the fact while offering no explanation for how supervisory-level staff were able to carry out sustained sexual contact with prisoners. The arrest of Mills and Posey in August 2025 — again following allegations rather than proactive detection — continues this reactive pattern. There is no public record of the GDC implementing systemic changes to supervision, camera coverage, or PREA compliance protocols in response to any of these cases.

For families and advocates, the practical implication is clear: internal reporting alone is insufficient. GPS's February 2025 safety guide directs families to simultaneously contact the DOJ, PREA Coordinators, and legal advocacy organizations rather than relying on GDC internal channels. The June 2025 Supreme Court ruling creates new legal avenues for survivors whose grievance attempts were obstructed — but accessing those avenues requires legal knowledge and resources that most incarcerated people in Georgia do not have. The accountability gap between documented abuse and meaningful institutional consequence remains one of the defining features of the sexual violence crisis in Georgia's prisons.