DOJ Investigating Georgia Prisons after LGBT assaults, 44 inmate deaths

WASHINGTON D.C. — (09-14-21) — The Biden Administration’s Justice Department on Tuesday announced a sweeping investigation into the Georgia state prison system plagued with an extreme culture of violence and neglect against LGBT inmates, staffing shortages and the alarming number of 44 inmate deaths by homicide since last year.

Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke told reporters on Tuesday that the inquiry was sparked by alarming reports of prisoner-on-prisoner violence, along with prisoner and staff assaults on gay, lesbian and transgender inmates.

In fact on September 10, 2021, 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.”

DOJ Investigates Georgia Detention System over LGBT Abuse, Homicides

In the lawsuit filed on September 10th, the Southern Center for Human Rights asserted that 70% of the 300 people being held in solitary confinement had suffered from “serious” mental illness.

“Conditions of confinement… are repulsive,” the civil rights group says in its complaint. “Rats and roaches crawl on people while they sleep and crawl in their food. Many cells have no power and defective plumbing. Living areas reek of feces from accumulated human waste in unflushed toilets, whose flushing mechanisms are controlled by staff. The conditions are so harsh and isolating — and mental health care is so inadequate —that self-injury and violence are common,” the group alleged. People subjected to solitary confinement … frequently experience psychiatric crises and become suicidal.”

We will continue to follow this story and bring you updates as they become available.

Article by: Paul Goldberg, Staff Writer

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