#JusticeForAll Archives

Georgia’s Prison Crisis: A System on the Brink

Georgia’s prison system is collapsing under its own weight.
More than 53,000 people are held in conditions the U.S. Department of Justice calls unconstitutional — where gangs rule, officers vanish, and human life has lost its value.

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.

Georgia Supreme Court Opens Door for Prisoners to Challenge Convictions Based on Outdated Science

Georgia prisoners convicted on discredited forensic evidence now have precedent for new trials. Southern Center for Human Rights wins landmark Smith case.

Parole: A Promise Broken — and How Georgia Can Make It Right

Parole isn’t mercy—it’s a promise. A promise that if you do the work, you can come home. Families across Georgia have waited years for the system to keep that promise. It’s time for the state to restore trust and fairness.

Starved and Silenced: The Hidden Crisis Inside Georgia Prisons

“My son went in weighing 180 pounds. Now he looks like he belongs in a concentration camp.”

Across Georgia’s prisons, men and women are wasting away — surviving on a few spoonfuls of grits, bologna, and moldy air. The Department of Corrections calls it efficiency. We call it **cruelty by design.**

Starvation, disease, and violence are the price of Georgia’s broken prison food system — a system that profits from suffering and punishes the hungry.

Sheqweetta Vaughan’s Death at Arrendale Prison: Another Tragedy of Neglect in Georgia

On July 9, 2025, Sheqweetta Vaughan, a 32-year-old mother incarcerated at Lee Arrendale State Prison in Georgia, was found dead in her cell. By the time staff discovered her, her body was already decomposing. Her death is not only a tragedy—it’s a stark indictment of the Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC) and how it treats …

📢 The FCC wants to allow prison cell phone jammers. In Georgia’s understaffed prisons, phones aren’t just contraband—they’re lifelines that save lives. Families must speak NOW.

Read why and how to contact the FCC to voice your opinion

Record Every Call: How to Expose Contempt and Abuse

When Georgia families call the GDC, they’re often ignored, belittled, or cursed at — and left in the dark about whether their loved one was stabbed, hospitalized, or even died. Georgia is a one-party consent state. Record every call. Show the world how GDC treats families.

The Hidden Violence in Georgia’s Prisons: Beyond the Death Toll

For every person killed in Georgia’s prisons, as many as 12 to 18 others are stabbed, slashed, or beaten so severely they require hospitalization. In 2024, that means nearly 1,200 men and women left with permanent scars, organ loss, or lifelong trauma — violence the state never counts.

Slavery by Another Name: Forced Labor in Georgia Prisons

Prisoner planting crops at Georgia prison, inmates in orange uniform working outdoors, highlighting issues of incarceration and forced labor in Georgia, Georgia Prisoners' Speak.

Slavery never ended in Georgia—it just changed names. Today, thousands of incarcerated people are forced to work for free sustaining state agencies and private corporations under threat of punishment. This is slavery by another name.