Racial Disparities

The Scale of Racial Disparity in Georgia's Carceral System

Georgia incarcerates its residents at a staggering rate — 881 per 100,000 people across prisons, jails, immigration detention, and juvenile facilities — the highest of any founding NATO country (Racial Disparities in Georgia's Criminal Justice System; Innocent People in Georgia Prisons). With approximately 50,000 people in state prisons, 95,000 behind bars in total, and 102,000 Georgia residents locked up across all facility types, the state holds the fourth-highest state prison population in the nation despite ranking only eighth in overall population (Georgia Incarceration Trends). Within this already outsized system, Black Georgians bear a disproportionate burden: they are incarcerated at 2.7 times the rate of white Georgians, according to Prison Policy Initiative data (Racial Disparities in Georgia's Criminal Justice System). Black adults constitute 61% of the male prison population while representing only 32–33% of Georgia's total population (Mass Incarceration as a Public Health Crisis).

The disparity extends far beyond prison walls. Of the 528,000 Georgia residents under some form of criminal justice supervision — a figure that includes felony and misdemeanor probationers, parolees, and more than 236,000 booked into local jails annually — Black Georgians, who make up 31% of the state's population, are dramatically overrepresented at every level (Georgia Probation & Community Supervision; Georgia Incarceration Trends). Black Georgians are at least twice as likely as white Georgians to serve felony probation statewide, and in some counties that ratio reaches 8 to 1 (Georgia Probation & Community Supervision). Georgia already leads the nation in felony probationers — with approximately 190,000–202,000 people on felony probation alone as of 2021–2022, and a total probation population (felony and misdemeanor combined) approaching 420,000 — meaning the racial skew of that supervision falls hardest on communities that are already economically marginalized (Georgia Probation & Community Supervision). Nationally, Black people are incarcerated at 5.2 times the rate of white people, and the Black parole supervision rate is 4.5 times higher than the white rate (Probation and Community Supervision in Georgia).

Georgia's probation rate stood at 3,943 per 100,000 residents as of 2019 — double the rate in Texas and four times the rate in North Carolina — and the state has held the top national ranking by a wide margin for years. A national report covering 2020, released in December 2021, found Georgia "still — by far — leads the nation with its probation rate," with a supervision rate more than twice the national average. As of 2015, Georgia's rate reached 5,570 per 100,000 on felony or misdemeanor probation, nearly four times the national average at that time. The result is that 1 in 25 Georgia adults is under community supervision, compared to a national rate of 1 in 55. The racial consequences of this scale are severe: the Department of Community Supervision's own 2019 Revocation Fact Sheet indicates that Black supervisees comprised approximately 61–67% of new-offense revocations — the largest category of revocations — with technical and special-condition revocations skewed similarly (Probation and Community Supervision in Georgia).

Racial Wealth Extraction Through Incarceration Costs

The financial burden of incarceration does not end at the prison gate — it is systematically transferred to families, and because Black Georgians are overrepresented in the carceral system, this extraction falls disproportionately on Black families and communities. Nationally, families of incarcerated people spend nearly $350 billion annually — almost four times what taxpayers spend on jails and prisons — with direct out-of-pocket costs averaging $4,200 per year, representing more than 27% of income for a family at the federal poverty line (Families as the Hidden Tax Base). In Georgia, those costs are amplified by commissary markups ranging from 83% to 1,150% above retail prices, which are funded almost entirely by families already stretched thin (Prison Labor & Wage Exploitation in Georgia).

The racial dimension of these costs is documented in the travel burden alone: Black family members average $2,256 per year on travel for prison visits, compared to the overall average of $1,703 — a gap that reflects both longer distances to remote facilities and higher rates of having incarcerated loved ones (Families as the Hidden Tax Base). Nationally, families spend $1.8 billion annually on visit travel, $5.6 billion on commissary and phone calls, $2.3 billion on childcare for children of incarcerated parents, and lose $6.7 billion in household income (Families as the Hidden Tax Base). Meanwhile, the Georgia Department of Corrections receives more than $8 million per year in kickbacks from Securus Technologies at a 59.6% commission rate on prison phone revenue — a financial structure that directly monetizes the need of families, disproportionately Black families, to stay connected with incarcerated loved ones (Follow the Money: Georgia Prison MAS Vendors).

The probation system adds a further and largely invisible layer of wealth extraction. Private probation companies operating in Georgia collect an estimated at least $40 million annually in supervision fees from probationers — revenues the companies treat as trade secrets, making true totals impossible to verify (Probation and Community Supervision in Georgia). Monthly supervision fees run $35–$40 per month, drug testing fees approximately $25 per test, and weekly testing on a 12-month misdemeanor sentence alone can generate roughly $1,300 in testing costs on top of the underlying fine. In DeKalb County, Human Rights Watch estimated that a single private company, JCS, probably collected over $1 million annually from probationers in that one court alone. Across 34 U.S. jurisdictions that require supervision fees, annual costs range from $170 to $917 — but Georgia's fee structure, combined with its exceptional sentence lengths, places it among the most aggressive fee jurisdictions in the country. Because 80% of misdemeanor probationers in Georgia are supervised by private, for-profit companies, and because Black Georgians are dramatically overrepresented in the probation population, this fee extraction falls with particular force on Black families and communities. GBPI's 2024 analysis of Augusta's for-profit probation system found it "imposes high fees, extends supervision lengths, and worsens economic insecurity disproportionately among low-income Black and Latinx residents" (Probation and Community Supervision in Georgia).

The predatory structure of "pay-only probation" — placing someone under supervision solely because they cannot afford to pay a court fine on the day of sentencing, then charging supervision fees on top of the original debt — converts the probation system into a debt collection mechanism that compounds poverty rather than addressing it. Despite the U.S. Supreme Court's 1983 ruling in Bearden v. Georgia — a case originating in Georgia itself — that a state cannot revoke probation and imprison a defendant solely for inability to pay without first inquiring into ability to pay, courts across Georgia have systematically failed to conduct this inquiry. In DeKalb County, the ACLU documented that while Black residents make up 54% of the county population, nearly all probationers jailed for failure to pay by the DeKalb County Recorders Court were Black (Probation and Community Supervision in Georgia).

Probation as a Racial Disparity Multiplier

Georgia's probation system functions not merely as an alternative to incarceration but as a mechanism that amplifies and entrenches racial disparity at every stage of the criminal justice process. The Urban Institute has observed that "probation supervision represents an important fork in the road for justice-involved individuals, with failure on probation setting a path for more severe sanctioning" — and in Georgia, that fork runs along racial lines with remarkable consistency (Probation and Community Supervision in Georgia).

The scale of Georgia's probation sentences is itself a driver of disparity. Average felony probation sentences in Georgia are 6.3 years — nearly double the U.S. average — and over 37% of individuals have a probation sentence longer than 10 years. After prison, the average Georgian is sentenced to 13 years on probation. Georgia does not cap felony probation terms, unlike many other states, and its fixed-term sentencing model — in which judges specify a total sentence and then suspend or probate any portion — frequently produces supervision terms that extend decades beyond any incarceration. An estimated 50,000 people in Georgia have been on supervision for more than two years, despite research showing that the risk of recidivism drops by half after an individual's first year on supervision. These extended terms dramatically increase the cumulative probability of a technical violation, a missed payment, or a new offense — and therefore increase the probability of revocation and reincarceration, outcomes that fall disproportionately on Black Georgians.

Revocations are the critical mechanism by which probation feeds mass incarceration. In 2015, probation revocations made up 55% of all Georgia prison admissions — by far the largest single source of Department of Corrections admissions. In 2019, 26,409 individuals (9.87% of the supervised population) experienced a probation revocation; of those, 7,506 were sent to state prison. Of the revocations to state prison, 68.5% were for new offenses, 16.1% for special condition violations, and 15.4% for technical violations. Nationally, supervision violations accounted for 44% of all state prison admissions in 2021, and in 2023 nearly 200,000 people were admitted to prison nationally for violating probation or parole — including over 110,000 for technical violations alone, at an estimated cost to states of $10 billion. The racial composition of Georgia's revocation pipeline — with Black supervisees comprising roughly 61–67% of revocations despite representing approximately 32–33% of the state's population — means that this pipeline disproportionately funnels Black Georgians back into incarceration (Probation and Community Supervision in Georgia).

The private probation industry that supervises 80% of Georgia's misdemeanor probationers has a structural interest in extending supervision and generating fees rather than closing cases. Augusta, for example, has the second-highest average rate of people on misdemeanor probation among Georgia counties while simultaneously having the lowest average rate of closing misdemeanor probation cases — a combination that reflects a system optimized for fee generation rather than rehabilitation or public safety. In 648 Georgia courts in 2012, more than 250,000 misdemeanor cases were assigned to private probation companies. Sentinel Offender Services, before litigation drove it from Georgia (with its statewide operations acquired by CSRA in 2017), held contracts with over 90 Georgia courts. CSRA Probation Services now holds contracts in approximately one-third of Georgia's 159 counties, spanning more than 170 courts statewide. Georgia's private probation industry originated from legislation passed in 1991–1992 that cleared the path for outsourcing misdemeanor probation services; the state has since become one of the largest markets for private probation companies in the United States.

Oversight of this industry is structurally compromised. Steve Queen — formerly of CSRA Probation Services and a 25-year veteran of probation administration — was elected Chair of the Board of Community Supervision, raising significant conflict-of-interest concerns about the body charged with regulating the very industry from which he came. The 2021 budget allocated $166 million to DCS — nearly double the 2012 level — with field services accounting for 92% of expenditures, while the agency's approximately 2,000 employees supervise caseloads that averaged 132 cases per officer as of summer 2021. By contrast, the cost of parole supervision per day was just $3.13 per parolee in FY 2025, compared to $80.31 per day to incarcerate someone — a cost differential that underscores the fiscal as well as humanitarian stakes of revocation decisions (Probation and Community Supervision in Georgia).

Individual cases document what these aggregate numbers mean in practice. Tom Barrett stole a single can of beer worth $2 in 2012, was fined $200 with probation through Sentinel, and — destitute, selling blood plasma twice a week to survive — was jailed when he could not pay mounting probation fees that exceeded $1,000. Quentone Moore, an ex-marine in Augusta, was sentenced to electronic monitoring through Sentinel for misdemeanor battery; because he was homeless and could not install the required landline, he spent 52 days in jail. Van Houston, a 64-year-old Vietnam veteran in Sandersville living on $599 per month in Social Security, was sentenced to 24 months' probation for DUI and faced $4,500 in fines and costs he had no means to pay. Kevin Thompson, a 19-year-old Black DeKalb County resident, was jailed for five days because he could not afford to pay $838 in traffic fines — a case that resulted in a $70,000 settlement and bench card reforms following the ACLU's Thompson v. DeKalb County litigation (Probation and Community Supervision in Georgia).

As Adam Gelb, president of the Council on Criminal Justice, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "It is absolutely counterproductive to have so many people under supervision for so long. And it would be a mistake even if there were no racial disparities." LaGrange Police Chief Lou Dekmar was more direct about the operational consequences: "Based on my communication with community supervision officers, they are frustrated by the system... The system has created significant public safety concerns."

Racial Wealth Extraction Through Incarceration Costs

The financial burden of incarceration does not end at the prison gate — it is systematically transferred to families, and because Black Georgians are overrepresented in the carceral system, this extraction falls disproportionately on Black families and communities. Nationally, families of incarcerated people spend nearly $350 billion annually — almost four times what taxpayers spend on jails and prisons — with direct out-of-pocket costs averaging $4,200 per year, representing more than 27% of income for a family at the federal poverty line (Families as the Hidden Tax Base). In Georgia, those costs are amplified by commissary markups ranging from 83% to 1,150% above retail prices, which are funded almost entirely by families already stretched thin (Prison Labor & Wage Exploitation in Georgia).

The racial dimension of these costs is documented in the travel burden alone: Black family members average $2,256 per year on travel for prison visits, compared to the overall average of $1,703 — a gap that reflects both longer distances to remote facilities and higher rates of having incarcerated loved ones (Families as the Hidden Tax Base). Nationally, families spend $1.8 billion annually on visit travel, $5.6 billion on commissary and phone calls, $2.3 billion on childcare for children of incarcerated parents, and lose $6.7 billion in household income (Families as the Hidden Tax Base). Meanwhile, the Georgia Department of Corrections receives more than $8 million per year in kickbacks from Securus Technologies at a 59.6% commission rate on prison phone revenue — a financial structure that directly monetizes the need of families, disproportionately Black families, to stay connected with incarcerated loved ones (Follow the Money: Georgia Prison MAS Vendors).

From Convict Leasing to Modern Labor: A Continuous Arc

The racial disparities in Georgia's current carceral system did not emerge in a vacuum — they are the direct descendants of a convict