Federal probe finds deplorable conditions inside Georgia prisons

ATLANTA – Georgia’s prison system is violating inmates’ constitutional rights by failing to protect them from widespread violence, the U.S. Justice Department announced Tuesday.The agency released a 94-page report following a multi-year investigation that originally focused on whether the state was adequately protecting LGBT inmates from sexual abused and expanded to cover all inmates incarcerated at medium- and close-security prisons.“Our findings report lays bare the horrific and inhumane conditions that people are confined to inside Georgia’s state prison system,” Assistant U.S. Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said during a news conference in Atlanta.“Our statewide investigation exposes longstanding, systemic violations stemming from complete indifference and disregard to the safety and security of people Georgia holds in its prisons. … The Justice Department is committed to using its authority to bring about humane conditions of confinement that are consistent with contemporary standards of decency and respect for human dignity.”Georgia has the fourth-highest state prison population in the country, with nearly 50,000 inmates incarcerated in 34 state-operated prisons and four private prisons.The report attributed widespread violence in the prison system to understaffing and systemic deficiencies in physical plant, housing, control of contraband, and incident reporting and investigations....