Justice Department finds Georgia ‘deliberately indifferent’ to unchecked abuses at its prisons

Gen. Kristen Clarke, center, discusses a new Department of Justice report about the state of Georgia’s prisons at a news conference in Atlanta on Tuesday. Georgia prison officials are “deliberately indifferent” to unchecked deadly violence, widespread drug use, extortion and sexual abuse in state lockups, the U.S. Justice Department said Tuesday, threatening to sue the state if it doesn’t quickly take steps to curb rampant violations of prisoners’ 8th Amendment protections against cruel punishment. Allegations of violence, chaos and “grossly inadequate” staffing are laid out in the Justice Department’s grim 93-page report, the result of a statewide civil rights investigation into Georgia prisons announced in September 2021. The Justice Department’s findings “reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the current challenges of operating any prison system,” the agency said. Despite this, the final OPS investigative report incorrectly determined that no seminal fluid was detected, and the allegations were not substantiated.” Clarke said Tuesday that efforts to stop the violence, suffering and chaos in the Georgia prison system also figure into the pursuit of racial justice.