Prisons in Georgia are stricken by assaults, homicide and sexual violence and officers within the southern US state are “intentionally detached” to the horrible situations, the Justice Department mentioned Tuesday.
“Time in jail shouldn’t be a sentence to demise, torture or rape,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke mentioned at a press convention releasing the findings of an investigation into Georgia’s prisons.
Prisoners are confined in “horrific and inhumane situations,” Clarke mentioned. “People are assaulted, stabbed, raped and killed or left to languish inside services which can be woefully understaffed.”
The Justice Department report mentioned “the State is intentionally detached to those unsafe situations” and whereas it has identified about them for years it has “didn’t take affordable measures to deal with them.”
Georgia has the fourth-largest incarcerated inhabitants within the United States with practically 50,000 individuals behind bars in 34 state-operated prisons and 4 non-public prisons.
Georgia’s jail inhabitants has greater than doubled since 1990. Fifty-nine % of the inmates in state prisons are Black whereas Blacks make up 31 % of the state’s inhabitants.
The report detailed a lot of harrowing incidents together with two brutal circumstances in April 2023 inside days of one another at Smith State Prison.
In one incident, an inmate was discovered useless in his cell, presumably strangled by his roommate, the report mentioned.
“The native coroner famous the physique was badly decomposed, and the person probably had been useless for over two days,” it mentioned.
Four days earlier, an inmate was assaulted by a number of different prisoners and a video of the assault was uploaded on social media, the place the sufferer’s household noticed it, the report mentioned.
In the video, the person is seen sitting on the ground together with his fingers tied behind his again whereas a gaggle of males punch, kick and stab him.
The Georgia Department of Corrections reported a complete of 142 homicides in its services between 2018 and 2023.
The Justice Department probe uncovered “long-standing, systemic violations stemming from full indifference and disrespect for the protection and safety of individuals Georgia holds in its prisons,” Clarke mentioned.
Peter Leary, US Attorney for the Middle District of Georgia, mentioned he hopes the report serves as a “wake-up name” and the division can “work collaboratively with the State of Georgia to enhance these lethal situations.”
cl/st
This article was generated from an automatic information company feed with out modifications to textual content.