Empty Guard Towers, Rising Death Tolls: The Prison Staffing Crisis Killing People in Georgia

TL;DR

Georgia’s prisons are in crisis. More than half of all guard jobs are empty. In 2024, 66 people were killed in Georgia prisons — up from 8 or 9 a year in 2017–2018. Over 8 out of 10 new guards quit in their first year. Georgia pays its guards the lowest in the nation. The state has spent hundreds of millions of dollars, but nothing is working.

Why This Matters

If your loved one is in a Georgia prison, this report explains what they face every day.

When guard posts are empty, no one is watching. No one is there to stop fights. No one is there to answer a call for help. No one is there to check on someone who is sick.

At one prison, a man’s body lay in his cell for five days before anyone found him. At another, a man was beaten to death because no guards were in the dorm.

This is not bad luck. This is what happens when the state fails to staff its prisons. The people inside pay the price with their safety and their lives.

This report breaks down the numbers. It shows how we got here. And it explains why hiring more guards alone will not fix this.

Key Takeaway: When prisons don’t have enough staff, people inside get hurt and die. Georgia has the worst guard shortage in the country.

How Bad Is the Guard Shortage?

Georgia has 5,991 guard jobs on the books. As of January 2024, 2,985 of those jobs were empty. That’s a 52.5% vacancy (empty job) rate.

Put simply: more than half of all guard jobs have no one in them.

It gets worse at some prisons:

• 20 out of 34 state prisons have more than half their guard jobs empty
• 8 out of 34 prisons have more than 70% of guard jobs empty
• At Valdosta State Prison, 80% of guard jobs were empty as of April 2024

National rules say no more than 10% of guard jobs should be empty. Georgia is more than five times over that limit.

This isn’t just a Georgia problem. It’s happening across the country:

• The total number of prison workers dropped by 10% between 2019 and 2023
• Over 64,000 prison staff jobs were lost between 2020 and 2023
• 25 states lost at least 10% of their prison workers

Key Takeaway: More than half of Georgia’s prison guard jobs are empty. At some prisons, 70% to 80% of posts have no one in them.

People Are Dying Because of This

The link between empty guard posts and death is clear.

In 2017–2018, Georgia prisons saw 8 to 9 killings per year. Guard jobs were about 20–30% empty at that time.

By 2024, guard jobs were 52.5% empty. Killings jumped to 66 confirmed deaths — more than seven times higher.

Across the country, the picture is the same:

• Attacks on people in prison rose 54% between 2019 and 2024
• Attacks on staff rose 77%
• The prison death rate went up 47% — from 2.8 to 4.1 per 100,000 people

Real People, Real Deaths

Marquis Jefferson was killed at Washington State Prison in May 2022. Papers showed no guards were in the dorm when he was attacked. No one noticed until other people carried his body to the door.

Anthony Zino was found dead at Smith State Prison in April 2024. He had been dead for five days before anyone noticed. The state said staffing had nothing to do with it. They refused to share their findings.

Angel Manuel Ortiz was days from going home on parole in 2019. He was put in a cell with a violent person who had said he would kill anyone placed with him. Staff shortages kept anyone from making a safer choice. Ortiz was killed.

At Smith State Prison, seven people were killed in 2024 — the most of any Georgia prison.

Consultants hired by the Governor found that gangs are “effectively running” some prisons because there aren’t enough guards.

Key Takeaway: As guard jobs emptied out, killings in Georgia prisons jumped from 8–9 a year to 66 in 2024.

Why Can’t They Hire Enough Guards?

There are three big reasons.

1. The Pay Is the Worst in the Country

Georgia pays its guards less than any other state. The average guard in Georgia makes $45,603 a year. The national average is $54,007. That’s $8,404 less than the rest of the country.

Starting pay is $40,000 to $43,000. That works out to about $19 to $21 an hour. In the Atlanta area, you can make the same or more at a warehouse or a fast food job — without the danger.

2. Almost No One Who Applies Gets Hired

The state doubled its job applications from about 300 a month to over 700 a month. But out of every 800 people who applied, only 118 were hired. That’s less than 15%. Most couldn’t pass the hiring tests.

The state’s own leader said it plainly. Commissioner Oliver told lawmakers: “Trying to hire 2,600 people in a fiscal year is just — it’s just not possible.”

3. The Ones Who Get Hired Don’t Stay

This may be the worst part. Out of every 100 guards hired, about 83 quit within their first year. The first-year quit rate is 82.7%.

Nationally, about 38% of new guards leave in their first year. Georgia’s rate is more than double that.

The job is so dangerous and so draining that people simply cannot stay.

Key Takeaway: Georgia pays guards the least in the nation, can only hire 15% of people who apply, and 82.7% of new hires quit within a year.

The Job Is Destroying the Guards Too

This crisis hurts everyone — including the guards who stay.

• 34% of guards have PTSD — more than twice the rate for military veterans
• Guards kill themselves at twice the rate of police officers
• Guards kill themselves at a rate 39% higher than other working adults
• 85% of guards say they have seen someone get badly hurt or killed at work
• Guards live to about 59 years old — compared to 75+ for most Americans
• 26% of guards deal with depression, versus 9–10% in the general public

With so few guards, the ones left work crushing hours. In North Carolina, prison staff logged 1.6 million hours of overtime in one year. Some worked multiple 18-hour shifts in a row.

Tired guards take twice as many sick days. That leaves even fewer people to cover shifts. The cycle gets worse and worse.

Key Takeaway: Guards face PTSD at twice the rate of military veterans and die about 16 years younger than most Americans.

Where Is All the Money Going?

States are spending more and more — and getting less and less.

• In 2024, states paid over $2 billion in overtime to cover empty guard jobs. That’s an 80% jump from five years ago.
• National prison spending went up 27% from 2017 to 2025 — even though the number of people in prison went down 15%.
• Replacing just one guard costs about $64,635 when you count hiring, training, and lost time. In Alabama, this cost the state over $11 million a year.

Georgia Has Tried Pay Raises — They Haven’t Worked

None of these moves have solved the problem. Georgia’s total staff fell from 8,158 in 2020 to 6,169 by 2022 — a loss of nearly 2,000 workers (24%). Even with more spending, the state has fewer guards than before.

Key Takeaway: Georgia keeps spending more money but has fewer guards than before. States spent over $2 billion on overtime alone in 2024.

Why Hiring Alone Won’t Fix This

Many experts say the real problem isn’t hiring. The real problem is that too many people are locked up.

Georgia locks up about 51,000 people in 34 prisons. Even if the state could fill all 5,991 guard jobs, the ratio of guards to people would still be thin.

But filling those jobs seems beyond reach. The pay is too low. The job is too dangerous. The trauma is too high. And there are easier jobs out there.

Other states have tried drastic steps:

• Florida and West Virginia called in the National Guard to help run prisons
• Nevada looked into using drones instead of guards
• Florida dropped the minimum age for guards from 19 to 18
• Arizona stopped checking job references to speed up hiring

None of these fixes have worked.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics says the guard workforce will shrink by 7% through 2034. About 31,900 guard jobs will open each year — but only because people keep leaving.

Researchers call this crisis “an untreatable symptom of mass incarceration — not a recruitment problem.”

The only lasting answer, experts say, is to reduce the number of people in prison through:

• Broader parole options
• Shorter sentences
• Choices other than prison for some crimes
• Review of life sentences (nearly 10,000 people serve life terms in Georgia)

Georgia’s Truth in Sentencing laws force people to serve 65% to 100% of their time. As long as the state holds 51,000 people, no amount of hiring can make the system safe.

Key Takeaway: Experts say there is no way to hire enough guards at current prison population levels. The only lasting fix is to reduce how many people are locked up.

Glossary

Vacancy rate — The share of jobs that have no one in them. If a prison needs 100 guards but only has 48, the vacancy rate is 52%.

Turnover rate — How many workers leave their jobs in a given year. A 47% rate means nearly half of all guards left in one year.

First-year attrition — The share of new hires who quit in their first 12 months on the job.

Mandatory overtime — Extra hours guards are forced to work because there aren’t enough people to fill shifts. Can mean 16- to 18-hour days.

Emergency staffing level — When a prison has so few guards that basic safety breaks down. Usually means more than half of jobs are empty.

Lockdown — When everyone in a prison is kept in their cells, often 23 to 24 hours a day. Happens when there aren’t enough guards to watch common areas.

PTSD — Post-traumatic stress disorder. A mental health condition caused by living through or seeing terrible events.

GDC — Georgia Department of Corrections. The state agency that runs Georgia’s 34 prisons.

Truth in Sentencing — Laws that require people to serve most of their sentence (65% to 100% in Georgia) before they can be released.

Eighth Amendment — Part of the U.S. Constitution that bans cruel and unusual punishment. The U.S. Department of Justice found Georgia’s prisons violate this right.

Decarceration — Reducing the number of people in prison through shorter sentences, expanded parole, and alternatives to locking people up.

Safe Inside Initiative — A government-funded research program that studied violence and deaths in state prisons. Its February 2026 report found prisons became 47% deadlier over five years.

Read the Source Document

This post is based on research compiled by Georgia Prisoners’ Speak in February 2026: Staffing Crisis & Correctional Officer Turnover: A National Emergency with Georgia at the Epicenter.

📄 Read the full report (PDF)

Other Versions of This Report

We created different versions of this report for different readers:

• 📋 Version for Lawmakers — Policy details and budget data
• 📰 Version for Media — Story angles and key findings
• 🏛️ Version for Advocates — Legal arguments and action steps

All versions use the same facts and sources.