Georgia’s constitution contains a clause no other state has: a ban on abusing any person “in being arrested, while under arrest, or in prison.” Written by Reconstruction delegates in 1868, cited only ten times since, it may be the most powerful untested legal tool against the prison crisis.
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.