Between 2018 and 2023, the Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC) reported 142 homicides inside its facilities, including 35 in 2023 alone. Those startling numbers brought the U.S. Department of Justice to town. On Oct. 1, the DOJ released a damning report on the conditions inside Georgia prisons, which include dangerously low staffing levels, rampant sexual abuse, a failure to protect LGBTQ+ individuals, and nearly wall-to-wall violence, the Appeal reports. But the DOJ also highlighted one lesser-known practice that has long worried and infuriated those close to the prison system: Claiming people murdered inside GDC walls died from “unknown” causes. “Notably, GDC’s mortality data categorizes many deaths that obviously were homicides as having an unknown reason or unknown verified cause of death,” the DOJ wrote. According to federal investigators, GDC employees appear to frequently misclassify murders in official datasets—even when incident reports clearly state someone was killed. The DOJ says Georgia prison officials also regularly claim someone died from “unknown causes” if an autopsy is pending and update that data when an investigation ends. But, according to the DOJ, those processes often take months or years.
“In the meantime, GDC inaccurately reports these deaths both internally and externally, and in a manner that underreports the extent of violence and homicide in GDC prisons,” the federal government wrote. In June 2024, for example, Georgia prisons said only six people had been killed inside its facilities, even though the DOJ had obtained reports showing at least 18 people had been murdered in that timeframe. “Even when incidents are accurately reported, GDC systems for investigating violent incidents, and for reviewing incidents to identify the factors that contribute to violence, are inadequate to protect incarcerated persons from harm,” the report said. The GDC issued an official response to the findings of the DOJ on Oct. 2, 2024, saying that the agency was “extremely disappointed” to learn of the federal department’s posture and the “variety of accusations” brought against the Georgia prison system. The findings didn’t shock imprisoned people or those close to them. While the federal Death in Custody Reporting Act (DCRA) says states must send jail and prison mortality data to the federal government, most keep poor records, and many do not follow the law at all. Advocates have long described the DCRA as toothless. In 2022, the DOJ admitted it failed to count thousands of in-custody deaths across the country.
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