Justice Department says Georgia is ‘deliberately indifferent’ to unchecked abuse in its prisons

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia’s prisons are “deliberately indifferent” to uncontrolled deadly violence, widespread drug use, extortion and sexual abuse in the state’s prisons, the U.S. Department of Justice said Tuesday. Justice, threatening to sue the State if it does not quickly take measures to remedy it. curb widespread violations of prisoners’ Eighth Amendment protections against cruel punishment.

The allegations outlined in a brutal 93-page report are the result of a statewide civil rights investigation into Georgia prisons announced in September 2021, when federal officials raised specific concerns concerning stabbings, beatings and other violence.

“Clearly insufficient staffing” partly explains why violence and other abuses are growing unchecked and sometimes unreported or uninvestigated, the report says, asserting that the state appears “deliberately indifferent” to the risks people face incarcerated in its prisons.

Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, who oversees the department’s civil rights division, presented the investigation’s findings at a news conference Tuesday.

“The state has created a chaotic and dangerous environment,” she said. “Violence is omnipresent and endemic. »

Multiple allegations of sexual abuse are recounted in the report, including abuse against LGBTQ inmates. A transgender woman says she was sexually assaulted at knifepoint. Another inmate said he was “extorted for money” and sexually abused after six people entered his cell.

“In March 2021, a man at the Georgia State Prison who required hospitalization due to physical injuries and lack of food said his cellmate sexually assaulted and raped him over time “, the report said.

Homicides behind bars also pose a danger. The report says there were five homicides in four different prisons in just one month in 2023.

The number of prisoner homicides has increased over the years, from seven in 2017 to 35 in 2023, according to the report.

The report contains 13 pages of recommended short- and long-term actions the state should take. The report ends with a warning that legal action was likely. The document says the attorney general could take legal action to correct the problems, and could also intervene in any related existing private lawsuits within 15 days.

The Georgia Department of Corrections “is committed to ensuring the safety of all offenders in its custody and denies that it has engaged in any pattern or practice of violating their civil rights or failing to protect them from harm due to the violence,” Corrections spokesperson Lori said. Benoit said in an email in 2021, when the investigation was announced. “This commitment includes protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) prisoners from sexual harassment, sexual abuse and sexual assault. »

At the time the inquiry was announced three years ago, Deputy Attorney General Clarke said the inquiry would focus on “harm to prisoners resulting from prisoner-on-prisoner violence”.

The Justice Department’s investigation was prompted by a thorough review of data and other publicly available information, Clarke said in 2021. Among the factors considered, she said, were concerns raised by citizens, family members of incarcerated people and civil rights groups, as well as photos and videos leaked from state prisons that “highlighted widespread gun smuggling and ‘open gang activity in prisons’.

___

McGill reported from New Orleans; Durkin, of Washington.