This is part two of our series on the trauma and abuse Georgia prisoners experience. You can find part one here: Invisible Scars: How Georgia’s Prisons Perpetuate Trauma and Abuse
Out of respect for the prisoners involved, we have chosen not to place any photos in this article. There are hundreds of photos and videos online that back up the violence occurring in Georgia prisons. We have also changed the names of victims and their families for their protection.
Georgia’s prisons are rotting from within. Inmates who dare to ask for protection or report abuse often face brutal retaliation. Corrections officers, charged with keeping order, are instead frequently the instigators or enablers of violence behind bars. This second installment of Georgia Prisoners Speak exposes harrowing examples of systemic abuse and retribution by prison staff – stories of beatings, killings, psychological torment, and policy violations that paint a picture of a system where cruelty goes unchecked. These accounts are drawn from inmates and families living this nightmare, backed by advocacy reports and investigations that reveal how Georgia’s prisons punish the victims and protect the perpetrators 1.
The voices of those inside describe a climate of constant fear and despair: a man beaten nearly to death after begging for help, a mother extorted under threat to her son’s life, and dorms of men terrorized by tactical squads masquerading as “search teams.” Each story cries out with a simple plea – this is inhuman, and it must end. As you read these accounts, remember that they are not isolated incidents; they are symptoms of a system on the brink of moral collapse. (Part Three will offer hope and solutions – but first, we must confront the horrors of the present.)
A Brutal Beating at Dooly State Prison
Late one sweltering summer evening at Dooly State Prison, an inmate we’ll call David (for safety, his real name is withheld) was trying to leave his dorm for fear of his safety. Here’s the description of events given to GPS:
A white male inmate was trying to leave the dorm, putting himself on the door. He was brought in earlier that day. He was afraid for his life. He feared for his safety and wanted to get out of the building due to threats from a gang and gang activity that he had obviously witnessed at some time before. This gang had been talking to him all during the day. At any rate, he wanted out, he had been asking various officers to leave throughout the day. That evening, Lieutenant Fudge and other officers and CERT team members came to the dormitory to investigate. Lieutenant Fudge was belittling the inmate, verbally abusing him, making remarks of her opinion of the man. She then took his property in hand and told him he had to stay in the building. He voiced that he was not safe. He moved to take back his property and all the other officers moved in on him. He then backed off and stated, “hey, I don’t want to be a problem. Please don’t put your hands on me.” Lieutenant Fudge took his property and moved to exit the building. Turning towards inmates in the dorm, she yelled “You are all free to kick his ass when we leave,” then exited the building with the other officers.
The inmate then yelled , “please, there’s no way I’m staying in this building,” and ran through the door before it could be closed. As the inmate went through the door, one officer flipped him and body slammed him, sending him to the ground, shutting the door, then several officers proceeded to beat him outside the door in the dark where there were no cameras. The inmate was injured so bad that he could not get up. They had to carry him off, presumably to the hole.
Lt. Fudge had a duty to protect this man; instead, she became the instigator, judge, and executioner, abusing her authority to incite violence against someone pleading for help. Her actions demonstrate the very corruption and abuse that plague Georgia’s prisons, fueled by unchecked power and a disregard for human dignity. This wasn’t just a breach of protocol—it was a betrayal of everything the uniform represents.
The inmates in that dorm watched in horror. They knew speaking up could make them next. “This is what happens to snitches.” The message was unmistakable: asking for safety is a punishable offense. Sadly, David’s beating is not an aberration. In Georgia prisons, staff-instigated violence or deliberate inaction is a common tactic to enforce a code of silence. Officers use physical force or orchestrated inmate-on-inmate attacks to retaliate against those who seek protection or expose wrongdoing 2. It’s unofficial policy by terror: step out of line, and you’ll be broken.
A Life Lost and Left Unnoticed
When William Rhodes walked into Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison (Jackson State Prison), he was just months away from earning his freedom. Six more months – that’s all he had to survive. But William never made it home. Instead, his name became another entry on Georgia’s grim roster of prison deaths3. Even worse, the circumstances of his death speak volumes about indifference and neglect by those in charge.
William was killed in his cell – reportedly the victim of a violent attack – on a winter night earlier this year (Feb 2025). Other inmates later told advocates that screams echoed down the hallway that night, then fell eerily quiet. Hours passed. No officer came to check. It was not until hours later the next morning that guards “discovered” William’s lifeless body, according to information shared by a prison watchdog group. By then, rigor mortis had set in. He had literally been left to grow cold where he fell 4.
Family members were shattered not just by his death, but by how it happened. “He was supposed to be out in six months,” William’s mother told local advocates, through tears of grief and rage. How does a man get murdered and lie dead for hours in a prison full of guards and cameras? The Department of Justice’s recent investigation into Georgia prisons underscores this outrage: it found “grossly inadequate” staffing and a pattern of unchecked deadly violence, where officials are “deliberately indifferent” to inmates’ safety. William Rhodes’ death – and the delay in even noticing his body – exemplifies that deliberate indifference. It’s a cruelty compounded by callousness: not only are prisoners unsafe, their lives seem to matter so little that no one even bothers to look when they’re in peril.
Punished in Numbers: Group Retribution at Wilcox
At Wilcox State Prison, in a dorm crammed with double-bunked beds and weary men, a single inmate made a mistake one day. Perhaps he spoke back to an officer or violated a minor rule – no one even recalls the original offense. What they do remember is the collective punishment that followed. In blatant violation of Georgia Department of Corrections policy, the warden cut off commissary privileges for the entire dorm for 30 days – all because of one man’s actions. Under GDC Standard Operating Procedure SOP 227.07, this should never happen; commissary access can be limited for an offender as a disciplinary sanction, but punishing dozens of others for one inmate’s infraction is not authorized 5.
The men in the dorm knew this was retaliation in disguise. This collective punishment came right after a prisoner had filed a grievance about officer harassment. Instead of investigating the complaint, the staff decided to “teach a lesson” by making everyone suffer. For a month, the entire dorm went without basic canteen items – no snacks to supplement meager meals, no soap or toothpaste beyond what little the prison provides. Tensions soared. Hungry and frustrated, inmates began to turn on the one held responsible. Whispers of payback filled the bunks at night.
“I thought I was going to be killed over a honey bun,” that accused prisoner later wrote. He described how his dorm-mates, desperate and angry at being deprived, beat him mercilessly one night until he paid them in blood for the privileges they lost. This is exactly what group punishment produces: a cycle of peer-enforced brutality. Georgia wardens routinely resort to group retaliation – locking down whole dorms or yanking privileges – because it spares the officers from having to address issues individually. It’s easier to make inmates police each other. As a recent GPS article noted, “If one prisoner isn’t ready for inspection, the entire dorm is locked down or loses store (commissary)”, inevitably causing inmates to “turn on each other” in violence 6.
At Wilcox, that meant one young man’s minor rule-break ended in a hospital trip and permanent facial scars. The warden broke policy (and basic decency), and inmates broke bones. Group punishment is not just a violation of rules – it’s a violation of humanity. It cultivates an environment of fear, distrust, and “prison justice” where the strong prey on the weak, and staff can shrug off responsibility while chaos reigns.
A Mother’s Plea: Son Trapped in a Gang-Run Dorm
“Every day, I wonder if my son will make it to tomorrow,” says a Georgia mother – we’ll call her Mrs. Johnson – whose son is incarcerated at a close-security prison. Her son, in his early 20s, is not a gang member. Yet he’s been housed in a dorm dominated by the Bloods gang, and each day for him has become a test of survival. Over a shaky phone line, Mrs. Johnson recounts her son’s nightmare: extortion, beatings, and constant threats – all happening while some staff look the other way, or worse, abet the abuse.
Early on, her son was told he had to “pay rent” to stay safe. When he couldn’t pay, gang members broke his nose. The next time, they cut him just to make their point. Desperate to protect him, Mrs. Johnson scrounged together $500 and sent it to an inmate’s account that the gang had designated. It didn’t matter – the extortion continued. “I paid them, and he still ended up in the hospital,” she says, voice cracking. Her son attempted to seek help from officers, but one of the guards on his dorm was allegedly affiliated with the gang running the unit. This officer would tip off certain inmates before shakedowns and deliberately place vulnerable newcomers in cells with known gang enforcers. In Mrs. Johnson’s words, “It’s like the guards and gang are one team, and my boy is the target of their games.”
Such allegations might sound extreme, but they echo patterns the DOJ identified: Georgia prisons have rampant extortion schemes, where inmates and even families on the outside are threatened for money, and officials fail to intervene . Gangs effectively control entire housing units, and some guards enable or profit from this power structure. In the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison (Jackson), numerous families reported receiving calls that their loved one would be hurt or killed unless they paid up 7. Mrs. Johnson’s ordeal is one heartbreaking example. She describes nights where her son calls, whispering in panic from a bathroom stall, the only place gang lookouts might not see him, recounting the day’s threats: “They took my shoes… They said if money isn’t here by Friday, I’m next.”
The psychological toll is immense. Mrs. Johnson cannot sleep; every ring of the phone could bring news of her son’s death. Her son, once a gregarious, athletic young man, now sounds broken and numb. He told her recently that he contemplated suicide because at least in protective custody (isolation) he might be safe from other inmates, but to get there he’d have to infuriate the gangs or officers further. (In reality, the numbers show that the hole, or isolation, is the most dangerously place in prison.) No mother should have to imagine these horrors befalling her child. In Georgia’s prisons, however, this is the daily reality for many: the vulnerable are fed to the wolves. It’s state-sanctioned “gladiator fights” – throwing nonviolent or unaffiliated prisoners into dorms ruled by violent gangs is like dousing a person in blood and tossing them into a shark tank. It is a silent death sentence disguised as a housing assignment.
When asked what she wants the public to know, Mrs. Johnson doesn’t hesitate:
“They’re torturing my baby in there. The state knows and does nothing. Please, help us.”
This anguished plea is echoed by countless families. They need more than our sympathy – they need change.
“Shakedown” or Terrorist? The TAC Squad
At the break of dawn, when most of the dorm at one Georgia State Prison was just getting ready for inspection after a fitful sleep, chaos erupted. The sound of an incoming army marching and singing cadence could be heard approaching. This meant only one thing. The TAC Squad was there. The Tactical Squad (TAC) – a heavily armored special team – stormed the dorm ostensibly for a contraband search. What followed looked less like a search and more like a sanctioned riot by the authorities.
Prisoners were yanked from their bunks, many half-naked and disoriented, and ordered at gunpoint (riot shotguns and pepper-ball guns) to strip naked so they can be searched, with every nook and crevice of their body examined, then allowed to put their underwear and t-shirt back on and proceed to stand in the dayroom under threat of being shot. Any perceived slowness or defiance was met with a boot or baton. One man who flinched when an officer struck him and slammed him face-first into a wall, his lip bursting against the concrete. The TAC team tore through personal property: mattresses were slashed open, family photos trampled, legal papers and letters tossed into the air like trash. Lockers were emptied, and what food items inmates had – bags of chips, ramen noodles – were crushed underfoot or tossed into garbage bags or eaten by TAC officers—YES, you heard that right. “We’re here for the phones and dope!” one officer barked, but their scorched-earth tactics suggested punishment rather than a mere search.
Since COVID-19, prisoners have ramped up their coverage and reporting of the conditions in Georgia prisons: the inhumane treatment, the abuses, the deliberate indifference. They have used cell phones to document all this, which has brought much needed (but unwanted by the GDC) attention, including an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice. So phones were very much the target of their search. Notice that the officer didn’t say anything about weapons, just “We’re here for the phones and dope!”
By the time the TAC squad left, the dorm looked like a hurricane had hit. Inmates were left coughing from pepper spray residue, nursing bruises, and staring in despair at the wreckage of their living space.
The manner in which these raids occur often crosses into collective punishment and terror. Regular shakedowns are necessary, but the TAC squads operate with impunity, frequently using excessive force and destroying property out of spite rather than necessity, according to inmate testimonies compiled by Georgia Prisoners Speak 6.
Worse, such raids often provoke retaliatory violence. In one instance at Macon State Prison, a TAC-led shakedown so enraged inmates (after their belongings were trashed and religious items desecrated) that a full-scale dorm disturbance erupted while the TAC squad was still at the prison, in another dorm – a disturbance that staff then used as justification for even harsher crackdowns. It’s a vicious feedback loop: aggressive searches beget anger, which begets violence, which begets more aggression. Accountability is virtually nil. A DOJ report noted that while tactical teams can be called in after major incidents to sweep for contraband, there is “a lack of routine attention to security searches” – meaning problems build until they boil over, met then with performative, heavy-handed raids.
For the men and women inside, TAC squad raids are sheer terror. An inmate from a south Georgia prison wrote that he’d “rather face the gangs than the Tac Squad” – at least the gangs, he reasoned, want something (money, allegiance), whereas a tac team seemingly just wants to hurt and humiliate. This is state-sanctioned trauma. Another inmate calls TAC the terrorist squad. A fitting name to a group whose existence is meant to instill terror in the population they control.
One could argue contraband must be fought – true, but when the “war on contraband” becomes a war on human dignity, something is deeply wrong.
When Gangs and Civilians Collide
Georgia’s failure to separate gang members from non-affiliated “civilian” inmates is perhaps one of its deadliest administrative sins. In a well-run prison system, classification is king – violent and predatory inmates should be kept away from those who pose little threat. In Georgia, classification is more of a joke: dangerous felons and known gang members are frequently housed with nonviolent, first-time offenders or those simply trying to do their time peacefully. The result? Gangs feast on these easy prey.
We’ve already seen how Mrs. Johnson’s son was victimized by this practice. Consider another example: a teenager (just 18) who entered the system on a burglary conviction, placed directly into a dorm with seasoned gang enforcers at Hancock State Prison. Within a week, he was coerced to “beat someone or be beaten” as a form of initiation. When he refused, they broke his jaw and knocked out two teeth. He spent months wired shut, sipping meals through a straw – then was thrown back into the same dorm. The message from officials was clear: deal with it.
Officers often turn a blind eye to such coerced recruitments. Some even reportedly facilitate transfersof inmates at the behest of gang leaders – moving rivals into vulnerable positions or allowing allies to congregate. Georgia’s inmate population includes an estimated 15,000 gang members, and gang affiliation has doubled in recent years. Yet instead of segregating gangs by affiliation or separating gang members from those unaffiliated (a practice that could limit their power), Georgia often mixes everyone together in a volatile stew. As one GPS analysis put it, the classification system is so broken that dorm assignments feel “completely random, and inmates are thrown into dangerous environments without regard for safety” 6 8. Some prisoners have a darker interpretation:
“They’re doing it on purpose”
They believe that officials deliberately allow gangs to run rampant, perhaps as a twisted means of control or due to apathetic neglect.
The consequences of these classification failures are catastrophic. Gangs use their freedom of movement and access to targets to enforce a regime of fear. They recruit the young or weak through intimidation – “join us for protection, or suffer” – leading to what is essentially forced gang membership. Many who never imagined joining a gang on the outside end up claiming a set inside, just to survive. Those who resist are marked. Rape, extortion, assault, even murder – all are more likely when rival and predator are housed with victim. A DOJ investigation explicitly noted that Georgia’s practice of ignoring obvious risk factors (like an inmate’s vulnerability or another’s history of predation) “may constitute deliberate indifference” to inmate safety. Put plainly: the state knows this is happening, and chooses to let it continue.
One inmate summed it up in a letter: “I came here to do my time, not join a gang. But in Georgia prisons, that’s not my choice to make.” The end of that story? He eventually succumbed and joined a gang for protection. Now he’s caught up in the very life of violence he feared. Georgia’s misclassification isn’t just a clerical error – it’s a catalyst for brutality that transforms inmates for the worse and leaves trauma and death in its wake.
Speaking Out Means Suffering: A Dooly Retaliation
Back at Dooly State Prison, another story provided to GPS – one that encapsulates how any act of bravery or honesty by a prisoner can be met with swift and vicious retribution. During a routine inspection by the administration in 2022, one inmate (a man known for helping others) spoke up. Standing at attention in front of Warden Aimee Smith, this prisoner voiced a polite complaint: “Ma’am, our toilets haven’t worked for days and we have sewage on the floor. Can you help us?”
Warden Smith, responded with a cold smile and a vague promise to “look into it.” She tried to change the subject, but this man asked again. Many in the dorm were on the verge of clapping because the issue was serious. The inspection team didn’t want to hear it and moved on. But the real response came later. As the warden was leaving the dorm, she indicated for some inmates to follow her out the door. They obliged and talked to her for several minutes. Notably these were all gang members. After the inspection team left according to witnesses, the gang members took the man who had been persistent with his questions into a cell and brutalized him. This was apparently on orders from Warden Smith herself. They took turns – punches to the gut, elbows to the back of the neck, boots to the knees. The inmate’s cries of pain were muffled by blood and a swollen jaw by the time they were done. One inmate was overheard saying, “Next time you take a complaint straight to the warden, you’ll lose more than your teeth.”
Whether Warden Smith directly ordered this is impossible to prove without an investigation (none was conducted). But among Dooly’s inmates, it’s understood: she wanted to send a message. This particular warden was already notorious – she has been sued for exactly this type of behavior before 9, her name appeared in a lawsuit (Green v. Smith) alleging deliberate indifference when an inmate under her watch was attacked in a riot. True or not, inmates believe Warden Smith condones brutality. And perception is powerful. In their eyes, that beating was sanctioned from the top and all the inmates in that dorm saw what appeared to be her giving the order.
The injured inmate was later thrown into administrative segregation (ostensibly for his “own protection”). He received no proper medical care for two days, by which point infection had set into his busted lip and eye. Guards filed a false disciplinary report (DR) accusing him of starting the fight, a common tactic to justify excessive force. Filing grievances in Georgia often feels like screaming into the void – or worse, painting a target on your back. As documented in Part One of this series, inmates who report violence frequently face solitary confinement, bogus DRs, or transfers to even more dangerous prisons as retaliation 1. Here, too, instead of addressing the valid concern (broken toilets and sanitation), the system’s response was to crush the messenger.
This incident rattled even the hardened souls at Dooly. One man said quietly, “We learned. Dooly’s rule: shut up, or get beat up.” The psychological effect is chilling. Not only do inmates endure horrific conditions, but they also learn that asking for basic human decency invites further abuse. This is the pathology of Georgia’s prison leadership in a nutshell: problems aren’t fixed, they’re covered up by inflicting pain on those who expose them. Warden Smith, by allowing or encouraging such retaliation, might maintain an illusion of control – but it’s control through terror, the hallmark of a truly broken institution.
When Inmates Become Weapons for Guards
Perhaps one of the most insidious forms of staff retaliation is when officers coerce or permit other inmates to carry out violence on their behalf – turning prisoners into proxy weapons. (As we’ve just seen.) These dirty tactics allow guards to keep their hands officially “clean” while inflicting punishment. “Why risk doing it ourselves,” one cynical guard was overheard saying, “when we can get another inmate to handle our lightweight?”
One scenario plays out repeatedly: an inmate files a grievance or otherwise angers a guard. That guard then leaks word to gang members that the inmate is a snitch or has disrespected them. In the predatory ecosystem of prison, that’s all it takes. The inmate is beaten brutally by his peers. Later, the guard can smugly note that it was “inmate-on-inmate violence” – conveniently obscuring their own role in setting it up. Families recount receiving calls from loved ones who were attacked under mysterious circumstances. In one case at Telfair State Prison, an inmate who had an argument with a CERT officer in the morning was found stabbed in his cell that night by gang members; he survived, barely. He later told advocates that the CERT officer had opened his cell door and allowed the attackers in. That officer then wrote in the incident report that the inmate was involved in gang activity – a false disciplinary report to cover the officer’s tracks.
This misuse of inmates to do the administration’s dirty work extends beyond spontaneous violence – it can be organized retaliation. Federal prosecutors have, in the past, caught Georgia officers conspiring in such schemes. In one infamous series of cases at Macon State Prison about a decade ago, multiple CERT officers pleaded guilty to federal charges after it was revealed they beat handcuffed inmates and covered it up with false reports 10. While that case involved officers themselves using force, the cover-up via false reports is a standard playbook. A more recent indictment (2023) in Georgia charged several officers at Central State Prison for intentionally standing by and allowing inmates to assault another inmate, causing severe brain injuries; those officers too were accused of falsifying reports to hide their inaction 11.
The pattern is clear: when officers either orchestrate inmate attacks or deliberately permit them, they almost always follow up with retaliatory paperwork – false disciplinary charges against the victim. These bogus charges serve two purposes. First, they punish the victim again, piling on disciplinary segregation or extended sentences as if being assaulted wasn’t enough. Second, they protect the perpetrators by creating a narrative that the injured inmate “had it coming” due to some rule violation or fight he supposedly started. It’s gaslighting of the highest order, written into official logs.
In the eyes of prisoners, this is perhaps the bleakest betrayal. They expect treachery from gangs – that’s the world they’re thrown into. But when the supposed keepers of peace are the ones setting you up to be harmed, hope withers. “They turned us into their own personal hit squad,” one former inmate said of certain corrupted guards. “We did their dirty work, or we suffered, too.” Some inmates, fearing punishment or seeking favor, will comply – attacking whomever a guard signals them to. This dynamic shatters any remaining notion of safety or justice on the inside. It means no one is truly neutral: not the people in your dorm (they might be co-opted) and certainly not the staff.
As these accounts demonstrate, Georgia’s prisons have descended into a hell where staff misuse power to retaliate and silence. It’s not just “a few bad apples” – it’s a deeply entrenched culture. The inhumanity is systemic, affecting everything from how prisoners are housed, to how rules are enforced, to how violence is addressed (or instigated).
Each of these stories – David’s beating at the hands of Lt. Fudge, William Rhodes’ unnoticed death, the Wilcox dorm punishment, Mrs. Johnson’s extorted son, the TAC squad’s terror, classification failures, the Dooly retaliation, and officers using inmates as pawns – reveals a facet of a broken system that feeds on cruelty. They also reveal the incredible courage of prisoners and families who still speak out, hoping that someone will listen.
Georgia’s incarcerated men and women are calling out from the darkness.
In Part Three of this series, we will shine a light toward solutions – urgent reforms and actions that can stop this madness. How can we dismantle the system of retaliation and build one of accountability and safety? How can oversight, policy change, and community pressure bring justice to those living in fear? There are paths forward, and hope has not completely died. For the sake of every David and William, for every mother like Mrs. Johnson, those reforms cannot wait.
The voices of the abused demand nothing less than a complete transformation of Georgia’s prisons, turning anguish into action. (To be continued…)
- Retaliation & Silencing of Prisoners, https://gps.press/retaliation-and-silencing-of-prisoners[↩][↩]
- Justice Department Findings, https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/georgia-prison-jail-inmate-abuse-deliberately-indifferent[↩]
- GPS Mortality Statistics 2025, https://gps.press/gdc-mortality-statistics/#2025-mortality [↩]
- HCRCGA, https://gps.press/wp-content/uploads/wpforms/727-f127654ddc9dbf0d8669b46d58e3c1c6/C6F31AEF-2D9D-4C72-A938-519A4C101BAC-6ca36881ab81e6b4c1f1b1f8f41b25af.png[↩]
- GDC SOP 227.07, https://public.powerdms.com/GADOC/documents/105728[↩]
- From Kangaroo Courts to Chaos, https://gps.press/from-kangaroo-courts-to-chaos[↩][↩][↩]
- Fox5 News, https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/jackson-state-prison-extortion-schemes[↩]
- https://san.com/cc/justice-department-calls-georgia-prisons-inhumane-gangs-extortion-rampant/[↩]
- In Green v. Smith, the plaintiff, Frederick Dwight Green, was an inmate at Valdosta State Prison in Georgia who filed a lawsuit against Warden Aimee Smith and other prison officials. Green’s claims arose after he was previously attacked by inmates at Dooly State Prison and he expressed concerns for his safety upon being transferred to Valdosta. The court, however, determined that Green failed to sufficiently demonstrate imminent danger at the time of filing and recommended dismissing his complaint without prejudice. https://studicata.com/case-briefs/case/green-v-smith-13/?utm_source=chatgpt.com[↩]
- DOJ Press Release, https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/fourth-georgia-corrections-officer-pleads-guilty-inmate-beating-case[↩]
- 13WMAZ News, https://www.13wmaz.com/article/news/local/macon/4-prison-guards-macon-central-state-prison-arrested-failing-act-during-assault-gdc-says/93-6d5ba333-2f4a-4715-9c90-d36669f54cb0[↩]
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