Published on: Tuesday, September 14, 2021

The Justice Department on Tuesday launched a sweeping investigation into the Georgia state prison system plagued by extreme staffing shortages and a culture of violence and neglect in which at least 44 inmates have died by homicide since last year (article available here).

Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, chief of DOJ's Civil Rights Division, said the inquiry was sparked by alarming reports of prisoner-on-prisoner attacks, along with prisoner and staff assaults on gay, lesbian and transgender inmates. The department's action expands on an existing federal inquiry started in 2016 that had been focused the sexual abuse of LGBT prisoners.

Earlier this month, the Georgia detention system was named in a federal civil rights lawsuit, alleging "abysmal" conditions inside solitary confinement wings that have "deteriorated past the point of constitutional crisis."

“The Justice Department’s investigations into prison conditions have been successful at identifying systemic constitutional violations and their causes, fixing those causes and stopping the violations," Clarke said, referring to recent examinations in Alabama and New Jersey. "We are investigating prison violence and abuse in Georgia’s prisons to determine whether constitutional violations exist, and if so, how to stop them.”