Brown v. Plata Archives

The Swing Space That Wasn’t: 524 New Beds, a Border-Wall Family, and No Contract Georgia Will Show

Georgia’s General Assembly appropriated $86 million for modular prison units sold as temporary “swing space.” GDC now calls them 524 permanent beds. The builder is owned by the Galveston family behind one of America’s largest border-wall contractors. Update, September 2: the state has since produced five executed contracts with ModCorr LLC totalling $85,585,244, signed April 25, 2025. The solicitation behind them is still unaccounted for.

Guthrie v. Evans: 13 Years of Reform, Erased Overnight

In 1972, inmates at Georgia State Prison filed a federal lawsuit that produced the most comprehensive court-ordered reforms ever imposed on a single American prison. Thirteen years of federal oversight transformed the facility. Then Congress handed Georgia the tool to walk away — and the state used it immediately. The same constitutional violations identified fifty years ago were found again in the DOJ’s 2024 investigation.

Brown v. Plata: A Legal Roadmap for Georgia’s Prison Crisis

The Supreme Court’s Brown v. Plata decision forced California to release 46,000 prisoners due to unconstitutional overcrowding. With federal enforcement abandoned, Georgia families must now pursue private litigation using the same legal roadmap.