Years after horrifying abuses and corruption in the Georgia state prison system began to come to light, Gov. Brian Kemp and the Georgia Legislature are taking action.
On Tuesday, Kemp released his proposals to finally address the problem, including $600 million in additional funding for a department with a budget of more than $1.48 billion. The money would help hire more prison staff, update training, make repairs to facilities and fix security issues.
Georgia Department of Corrections Commissioner Tyrone Oliver, who has long blamed the media for reporting the prison system’s failures rather than try to fix the problems, acknowledged that work is needed and warned that it will take years.
Kemp’s recommendations came at a presession meeting of the Joint Appropriations House and Senate Public Safety Subcommittees. Both chambers of the Legislature had empaneled committees to study myriad problems in the state’s prisons and were charged with making recommendations for the legislative session that begins Monday.
Kemp’s plan comes not a moment too soon. As House Appropriations Chairman Matt Hatchett said, “You can study things for a long time and hope you get the right answer and the right path forward. Well, this has been studied and studied. … It’s time to get something done.”
Now, nearly everyone seems to agree that the prisons need massive reform. Last year, the U.S. Justice Department issued a scathing report on the state of Georgia’s prisons. And a federal judge accused Georgia Department of Corrections officials of misrepresenting facts before the court.
The officials, the judge wrote, “have repeatedly presented false or misleading information to federal investigators, state lawmakers and even a federal judge,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Danny Robbins and Carrie Teegardin reported last month. “Falsified and backdated documents, false statements and flawed data are some of the tactics the agency has employed in attempting to hide its dysfunction, the AJC found. The GDC also has moved to block access to potentially damaging information,” the AJC staff members wrote.
The GDC reduced the information it provides on inmate deaths, restricted how and when federal investigators could access the prisons and refused to release some records.
This shows the clear need for transparency in prison operations. That could be a prison ombudsman appointed by and reporting to the governor or rules set forth by the Legislature on the quick and full release of documents. As the AJC reported, the prison system has for years shielded the public from escalating violence and downplayed media reports of a system teetering under a wave of violence. Public trust hinges on prisons providing accurate and timely data that provide insight into how the system is being run.
In April, a federal judge issued a contempt order citing the department with misrepresenting its efforts to comply with a five-year-old settlement over conditions in the state’s maximum-security prison, the Special Management Unit.
“As the end of the injunction’s term neared, it became clear to the Court that the defendants, in effect, were running a four-corner offense and had no desire or intention to comply with the Court’s injunction; they would stall until the injunction expired,” the judge wrote.
The Special Management Unit case stemmed from a prisoner’s lawsuit over solitary confinement. The inmate, Timothy Gunn, had been in solitary for five years. Excessive use of solitary confinement, though not unconstitutional, contributes to poor mental and physical health.
More than 40 U.S. states have banned or severely limited solitary confinement. The United Nations considers solitary confinement in excess of 15 days to be torture. An expert on prison conditions and solitary described the Special Management Unit as among the most draconian facilities he had ever seen, the AJC reported.
Gunn’s lawsuit resulted in a settlement that demanded major changes to Georgia’s prison system. An independent monitor is overseeing the GDC’s compliance with the settlement terms, though the department says that’s unnecessary.
As the media and federal investigators put a spotlight on the deadly deficiencies of the Georgia prison system, Oliver denied and misrepresented the problems. The state needs better leadership, and Kemp should demand it.
The AJC has investigated the state’s prisons for years and found rampant corruption, understaffing, drug and gang activity, contraband and record numbers of homicides and suicides. Wrongful death lawsuits have cost the state millions.
Understaffing is a serious issue. The AJC reported that some prisons have job vacancyrates of more than 70 percent. The GDC told legislators it has 2,600 openings out of almost 11,000 positions.
Part of the problem is low pay. The average salary for new corrections officers is $44,000. Kemp’s additional funding would help pay for higher salaries for correctional workers — including behavioral health, education and food service workers — bringing pay in line with neighboring states.
Understaffed prisons become hotbeds for criminal activity and violence. The Department of Justice’s October report called Georgia’s prisons inhumane. “People are assaulted, stabbed, raped and killed or left to languish inside facilities that are woefully understaffed,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said.
The GDC’s defense? The findings “reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the current challenges of operating any prison system.”
The Justice Department clearly understands the challenges of incarceration. But it’s not clear the GDC understands its role in protecting its staff, its inmates, the state’s tax dollars or the state’s residents.
The prison system has to deal with contraband — including cellphones, drugs and weapons — being smuggled into the prisons. The Senate committee recommended seeking permission from the federal government for cellphone jamming and creating consistent, systemwide policies to prevent managerial differences within corrections facilities.
The GDC’s failures are leading to deaths and other harm. GDC policies mandate that some closely supervised prisoners be checked every 15 to 30 minutes. After one inmate died, his attorneys discovered that no one had checked on him for almost seven hours.
Gang activity spills over the prison walls into our communities. Drug rings run from inside prisons put dangerous substances on our streets.
Prison sentences shouldn’t be death sentences, but a record number of inmates are dying.
Prison employees should know they are going home to their families after each shift, but two have been killed in recent years, including a kitchen worker.
Prison reform in Georgia is long overdue. It’s heartening that the governor and legislators are finally moving beyond studying the issue to fix it. The $600 million commitment from the governor is significant, but the governor and state lawmakers should be willing to commit more. Georgia has a $16 billion surplus.
There are many urgent needs in this state, but few are more urgent than fixing a system that is a threat to safety inside and outside of Georgia’s prisons.
— The editorial board
About the Author
