Deaths at record level in Georgia state prisons as crisis deepens

The Georgia Department of Corrections is seeing its deadliest year ever, with 156 deaths, including at least 24 homicides, during the first six months of 2024.

Mortality data obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution shows total deaths inside state correctional facilities from all causes have been rising since 2020. The number of such deaths in the first half of this year even exceeds the number of prisoner deaths during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

And the 24 homicides the AJC could verify so far this year put the prison system on track to top last year’s record toll. In the first half of last year, there were 18 homicides, with the year’s total at 38.

The number of homicides may be significantly higher. In a written statement, Department of Corrections spokesperson Joan Heath told the AJC that the prison system had investigated 33 prisoners’ deaths as homicides between Jan. 1 and Aug. 7 of this year. She did not respond to requests to reveal how many of these investigated deaths were in the first six months, and whether the investigations determined that the deaths were homicides.

The increasing death count raises questions about whether prison system failures are driving the totals.

An investigation by the AJC last year exposed widespread corruption in the prison system , including how hundreds of GDC employees had smuggled in drugs and other forms of contraband. The stories also detailed extreme understaffing , extensive illicit drug use by inmates, record numbers of homicides and suicides and large criminal enterprises run by prisoners that killed and victimized people on the outside.

Heath said a rising number of people in prison, along with longer sentences, likely contribute to the number of deaths.

“With 23,691 offenders facing 20-plus years, life or life without parole, many of the deaths are attributed to natural causes based on the number of years they remain incarcerated and begin to age,” she said in an email to the AJC.

It’s unclear how most of the prisoners died this year, whether from natural causes, suicides, drug overdoses or other accidents. After February, the GDC decided to no longer include the suspected manner of death in its monthly mortality reports, as it had done in previous years.

To determine which prisoners were homicide victims, the AJC reviewed incident reports and data, death certificates and arrest warrants and interviewed family members and local coroners. This year’s total includes one person who was not a prisoner, Aureon Shavea Grace, a food service employee at Smith State Prison who was shot to death in June by an inmate who then turned the gun on himself.

Six of the 24 homicides occurred in May, and that month saw several particularly disturbing killings.

One was the beating death of 32-year-old Shane Griffith at Valdosta State Prison, for which 11 inmates have been charged with murder. Another was the stabbing death of 31-year-old Freddie Talley at Hays State Prison, which led officers to recover seven weapons ranging in length from 9 to 22 inches, according to the incident report. Three inmates received disciplinary reports, but they have yet to be charged with crimes.

Also in May, a Georgia correctional officer was charged with felony murder in the death of a prisoner, Roderick Hayes. The officer, Lloyd Hopkins, was accused of helping three prisoners assault another with a “machete like weapon” in an attempt to retrieve a contraband cellphone. The inmate who was targeted in the attack, Robert Robish, defended himself and stabbed Hayes.

The GDC’s decision to stop including manner of death in its monthly reports came as the number of homicides was rising and the prison system was attracting widespread scrutiny.

The U.S. Department of Justice has been investigating violence in the Georgia prison system since 2021. In June, just days after Grace’s shooting, Gov. Brian Kemp announced the state had engaged consultants to conduct an in-depth, yearlong assessment of the GDC. Earlier in the year, the state Senate formed a committee to study the prison system, and a federal judge issued a blistering contempt order in a long-running case over conditions at the state’s Special Management Unit, Georgia’s supermax prison.

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