Georgia’s “Hardened” Solution: Another Fortress Instead of Reform
Georgia is spending hundreds of millions on new “hardened” prisons while people inside are starving, dying, and losing hope.
The state calls it reform, but it’s really just repackaged repression — concrete solutions to moral failures. The Department of Justice has already declared Georgia’s prisons unconstitutional, yet instead of addressing the root causes — chronic understaffing, violence, medical neglect, and starvation — the state keeps doubling down on construction contracts and calling it progress.
Prisoners are wasting away on trays of cold grits and two slices of bologna while $600 million is poured into walls, gates, and locks. If Georgia redirected even a fraction of that money to food, healthcare, and staffing, violence would drop, lives would be saved, and rehabilitation might finally mean something again.
Until Georgia chooses reform over repression, its new walls will stand as monuments to failure, not justice.
