Gangs Run Georgia’s Prisons. Other States Fixed This Problem Years Ago.

TL;DR

Gangs control daily life in Georgia’s prisons. They decide where people sleep, who eats, and who gets hurt. In 2024, at least 100 people were killed in Georgia prisons. That’s the worst year ever. Other states like Texas and Arizona fixed this same problem years ago. They kept rival gangs apart in separate housing. Violence dropped by more than half. Georgia refuses to do this. Governor Kemp plans to spend $600 million on prisons—but none of it goes toward keeping gangs apart.

Why This Matters

If your loved one is in a Georgia prison, this affects them every day.

Gangs decide where people sleep. They charge money for beds and safety. They force people to pay for phone time and showers. If your family member can’t pay, they face threats or worse.

The state knows about this. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) found it. Hired experts found it. But the state has no real plan to fix it.

Other states solved this problem. They kept rival gangs in separate housing areas. They gave people a way out of gang life. Georgia does neither. That means your loved one stays trapped in a system where gangs—not guards—make the rules.

Key Takeaway: Georgia knows gangs control its prisons but has no plan to separate rival groups or help people leave gang life.

The Numbers: How Bad Is the Gang Problem?

About 31% of people in Georgia prisons are confirmed gang members. That’s roughly 15,200 people out of about 49,000 total. They belong to 315 different gangs.

Across the country, about 13% of state prisoners are tied to gangs. Georgia’s rate is more than double that.

How the violence has grown:

• 2018: 7 people killed in prison
• 2021–2023: 94 people killed (almost double the prior three years)
• 2024: The state said 66 people were killed. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) confirmed at least 100. GPS found 330 total deaths. This was the deadliest year ever.

The DOJ says Georgia’s prison killing rate is nearly eight times the national average. Between January 2022 and April 2023, prisons logged more than 1,400 violent events. The DOJ said even that number was too low because many attacks go unreported.

Key Takeaway: Nearly 1 in 3 people in Georgia prisons is a confirmed gang member, and at least 100 people were killed in 2024 alone.

What Gangs Actually Control

The DOJ spent three years looking into Georgia’s prisons. What they found is shocking.

Gangs control:

• Bed space: Gang members decide where people sleep. They override choices made by prison staff.
• Phones and showers: Gangs control who gets to use phones and showers.
• Food: Gangs control who eats.
• Money: Gangs force families to pay for their loved one’s safety.

Guards are so outnumbered they go along with it. They mark people as being in their assigned beds. But those people are really sleeping wherever gangs put them.

Hired experts confirmed the same thing. At some prisons, gangs are “effectively running” the buildings.

Key Takeaway: Gangs—not prison staff—control where people sleep, eat, shower, and use the phone in Georgia’s prisons.

The Guard Shortage That Made This Possible

Gangs didn’t take over by force alone. The state let it happen by failing to hire enough guards.

In 2014, Georgia had 6,383 prison guards. By 2024, only 2,776 were left. That’s a 56% drop. Meanwhile, the prison population stayed at about 49,000.

Here’s how bad it is:

• In 20 of 34 state prisons, more than half of guard jobs are empty.
• In 8 prisons, more than 70% of guard jobs are empty.
• The safe standard is no more than 10% of jobs empty.
• At one prison, a single guard was watching over 400 beds.

The hiring system is broken too. Out of every 800 people who apply, only about 118 get hired. That’s a yield of about 15%. Of those hired, 82.7% quit within their first year.

When guards aren’t there, gangs step in.

Key Takeaway: Georgia lost more than half its prison guards in 10 years, leaving gangs to fill the power gap.

Broken Locks Make Things Worse

Even if Georgia had a plan to keep gangs apart, the buildings can’t support it.

A 2012 check at Hays State Prison found about 42% of cell locks were broken or easy to beat. Years later, the problem is still there.

People can leave their cells anytime. They can enter other cells. They can reach rooftops. They can move freely between housing areas. Hollow walls, wood doors, and drop ceilings make it easy.

Prison chief Tyrone Oliver said fixing all the locks “will take years.”

Key Takeaway: Broken locks mean people can move freely through prisons, making it impossible to keep rival gangs apart.

What Other States Did to Fix This

Several states faced the same gang crisis Georgia faces now. They fixed it with a simple four-step plan:

1. Find and confirm gang members through a formal process.
2. Keep rival gangs apart by housing them in different areas or buildings.
3. Remove gang leaders and put them in higher-security settings.
4. Offer a way out through programs that help people leave gang life.

Between 30% and 36% of states already keep gang members apart based on their group ties. Georgia does not.

Key Takeaway: The basic approach—find gang members, separate rivals, remove leaders, and offer a way out—has worked in multiple states.

Arizona: The Proof That Separation Works

Arizona gives us the strongest proof that gang separation (keeping rival gangs apart) cuts violence.

Arizona started its program in the 1990s. They placed confirmed gang members in a special high-security unit. Researchers studied the results carefully.

What they found:

• Assaults, drug crimes, threats, fighting, and riots all dropped by over 50% among gang members who were separated.
• Across the whole prison system, rule-breaking fell by 30%.
• The program may have stopped as many as 22,000 rule violations total.

This last point matters most. Separation didn’t just help where gang members were housed. It made the entire system safer. When gangs know they’ll be separated if they act out, many stop acting out.

Before the program, gang members broke rules at two to three times the rate of other people in prison. This confirms that targeting gangs is the right approach.

Key Takeaway: Arizona’s gang separation program cut violence by over 50% among gang members and made the entire prison system 30% safer.

Texas: A Full System That Works

Texas has the second-largest prison system in the country. It tackled its gang problem early.

Texas manages 12 main gang groups. (Compare that to Georgia’s 315.) Here’s what Texas does:

• Automatic separation: Once a person is confirmed as a gang member, they are moved out of the general population. Membership alone triggers the move.
• Dedicated housing: During the 1990s, Texas built space to house gang members in separate wings and units.
• The GRAD program: This nine-month program helps people leave gang life. It has three phases: drug treatment classes, thinking and anger skills, then gradual return to normal prison life with work and programs.

Results: After Texas began separating gang members across the system, gang-related killings and assaults dropped in a big way.

Texas also makes the cost of staying in a gang very clear:

• No in-person visits with family
• Limited phone use
• No school or job training programs
• Restricted movement
• Gang status is shared with the parole board

Key Takeaway: Texas separates confirmed gang members, offers a nine-month exit program, and saw big drops in violence.

California: You Can Do This Without Endless Solitary

California’s story shows both the wrong way and the right way to separate gangs.

The old way (before 2012): California locked gang members in tiny cells for years—sometimes over 20 years—just for being in a gang. At Pelican Bay prison, more than 500 people had been locked up this way for over 10 years. 78 people had been there over 20 years. The only way out was to inform on other gang members, which could get them killed.

This was cruel and it didn’t work. Gang leaders still ran criminal networks from inside those cells.

The new way (after 2015): A lawsuit called Ashker v. Governor changed everything. The deal said:

• People can’t be put in solitary just for being in a gang.
• There must be proof of a serious rule violation.
• No one can be locked up at Pelican Bay for more than 5 years.
• A step-down program lets people earn their way back to normal housing over two years.

The results: By June 2015, the state reviewed 1,274 cases. Of those, 910 people were moved out of solitary or set to be moved. Many feared a wave of violence. It didn’t happen. California’s review office found no proof that the changes led to more gang activity. Prisons were less violent than they had been in years.

The lesson: You can keep gangs apart without locking people in tiny cells forever.

Key Takeaway: California proved you can manage gangs without cruel long-term solitary—by using behavior-based rules and step-down programs.

Georgia’s $600 Million Plan Ignores All of This

In January 2025, Governor Kemp proposed $600 million for Georgia’s prisons. It was the largest spending plan for prisons in state history.

The plan includes:

• A 4% pay raise for guards
• Emergency repairs to buildings
• $40 million to plan a new prison
• 446 more private prison beds
• A new 3,000-bed prison

What it does not include:

• Any plan to house rival gangs apart
• Any program to help people leave gang life
• Any change to how the state assigns housing based on gang ties

The AJC pointed this out directly. They wrote that the Kemp plan “speak[s] directly to some of the DOJ’s concerns—particularly staffing and facility conditions—but not others, including sexual safety and the management of gang members.”

The state plans to build bigger, stronger buildings. But if rival gangs are still housed together inside those buildings, the killing will continue.

Key Takeaway: Governor Kemp’s $600 million plan fixes buildings and raises pay but does nothing to address how gangs are managed.

Georgia’s Only Strategy: Prosecute After the Damage Is Done

Georgia’s main gang strategy is to prosecute (charge and convict) gang members after crimes happen.

Attorney General Chris Carr created a statewide Gang Prosecution Unit. It has:

• Secured 52 convictions
• Charged more than 140 people across 13 counties

This work matters. But it only punishes gang activity after it happens. It does not stop the violence before it starts.

Texas also prosecutes gang members. But Texas pairs that with housing separation, exit programs, and smart classification. Georgia relies on prosecution almost alone.

Key Takeaway: Georgia punishes gang crimes after they happen but does almost nothing to prevent them through housing and programs.

Why Won’t Georgia Do What Works?

If other states solved this, why won’t Georgia?

There are real barriers:

• Not enough guards: You can’t keep gangs apart if there aren’t enough staff to enforce the rules. But this is a reason to hire more staff—not a reason to give up.
• Too many gangs: Georgia has 315 gangs, while Texas manages 12. But not all 315 are equal. A small number of major gangs cause most of the violence. Focus there first.
• Old, broken buildings: Many Georgia prisons have open dorms and broken locks. But the new $600 million in construction could include gang-separated housing if the state chose to build it that way.
• No experience: Georgia has never run a gang separation program. Building one takes years of training and planning.
• Political choices: It’s easier to announce new buildings than to do the slow, hard work of changing how prisons operate. Gang separation doesn’t come with a ribbon-cutting event.

None of these barriers are impossible to overcome. They are choices.

Key Takeaway: Every barrier Georgia faces has been overcome by other states—the real problem is a lack of political will.

What Should Happen Next

Based on what has worked in other states, Georgia could:

1. Focus on the biggest gangs first. Use existing data to find the 10–20 most dangerous groups. Start separation there.
2. Pilot the program at 2–3 prisons that have the best locks, staffing, and layout.
3. Design new buildings for separation. The planned 3,000-bed prison could be built with gang-separated housing from the start.
4. Create an exit program like Texas’s GRAD program. Give people a real path out of gang life with classes, drug treatment, and step-by-step return to normal housing.
5. Train staff in gang management, not just crisis response.
6. Track results carefully. Measure violence, assaults, and program completion at pilot prisons versus others.

This would not fix everything overnight. But it would be a start. Right now, Georgia has no plan at all.

Key Takeaway: A phased approach—starting with the most dangerous gangs at a few prisons—could begin saving lives now.

Glossary

• Security Threat Group (STG): The official prison term for a gang. Members are “validated” (confirmed) through tattoos, known ties, or their own admission.
• Gang validation: The formal process of confirming someone is in a gang. Once validated, this label follows them through the system.
• Restrictive housing: Housing where a person is kept apart from the general prison population with limited movement and programs. Not always solitary confinement—there are different levels.
• Administrative segregation: Being separated from others for management reasons, not as punishment for a specific act.
• Step-down program: A structured path that lets a person earn their way back to normal housing through good behavior and program completion.
• GRAD Program: Texas’s Gang Renouncement and Disassociation program—a nine-month program to help people leave gang life.
• Debriefing: When a gang member gives information about their gang to prison officials, often in exchange for being moved. This can be very dangerous because it marks them as an informant.
• General population: The main housing areas where most people in prison live with normal movement and access to programs.
• Vacancy rate: The share of guard jobs that are empty. The safe standard is no more than 10%.
• Contraband: Any item banned in prison, like drugs, weapons, or cell phones.
• Ashker settlement: A 2015 legal agreement in California that ended the practice of locking gang members in solitary for years based only on gang membership.

Read the Source Document

This post is based on GPS’s investigative research brief: The Gang Problem in Georgia’s Prisons: Why the State Refuses a Proven Solution (March 2026).

Read the full document (PDF)

Other Versions of This Post

We write every post for four audiences. Pick the one that fits your needs:

• For Legislators — Policy-focused with budget details and model language
• For Media — Story angles, data points, and key questions to ask
• For Advocates — Talking points, coalition-building frames, and calls to action
• For Families & the Public — You’re reading it now

One hundred people died in Georgia's prisons in 2024 while proven solutions sit unused. Other states cut prison violence by over 50% using gang separation—Georgia's leaders know this and choose inaction. Share this investigation and make silence complicit in preventable deaths.

Spread the Word — It Takes 15 Seconds

Square Wide

1. Tap a share button below to post directly, or
2. Download a graphic and post it to your feed with the caption from the share page

Twitter/X Facebook LinkedIn

Get all share graphics & captions for every platform →