DOJ: 'Horrific and inhumane' Georgia prisons violate Constitution

Oct. 1 (UPI) -- Georgia state prisons subject inmates to "horrific and inhumane" conditions in violation of the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the Department of Justice said Tuesday.

The DOJ published a 93-page report on the state's prison system Tuesday after an investigation.

"Our statewide investigation exposes long-standing, systemic violations stemming from incomplete indifference and disregard to the safety and security of people Georgia holds in prisons," Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said in a press release .

"People are assaulted, stabbed, raped and killed or left to languish inside facilities that are woefully understaffed," Clarke said. "Inmates are maimed and tortured, relegated to an existence of fear, filth and not-so-benign neglect."

Clarke said the conditions in Georgia's prisons harm inmates and put prison employees and the broader community at risk while violating "standards of decency and respect for basic human dignity."

Georgia has the nation's fourth-largest prison population, with about 50,000 inmates, but violates their constitutional rights by not protecting them from violence, the report said.

The Eighth Amendment protects U.S. citizens, including inmates, against cruel and unusual punishment.

The inmates are subjected to an "unreasonable risk of harm from sexual abuse" throughout the state's prison system, including LGBTQ inmates, the report said.

Understaffed prisons and deficient housing and oversight enables prison gangs to influence prison life and control entire housing units while operating "unlawful and dangerous schemes" inside and outside the prisons, which causes harm to inmates and the general public, according to the DOJ report.

"Our constitution requires humane conditions in prisons that ... ensure people in custody are safe," Northern Georgia U.S. Attorney Ryan Buchanan said.

Instead, the Georgia Department of Corrections subjects inmates to "disturbing and increasing frequencies of deaths" due to "failures to safeguard the men and women housed in its facilities," Buchanan said.

The DOJ's report is not tied to a criminal investigation, but Buchanan said it should alert Georgia officials to the need to improve conditions in the state's prison system.

Investigators with the DOJ's Civil Rights Division and the Special Litigation Section investigated Georgia's penal system and compiled the report.