Section Branding
Header Content
Georgia prisons chief pitches spending hikes for staffing, infrastructure needs
Primary Content
ATLANTA — State prisons chief Tyrone Oliver asked Georgia lawmakers Monday for $10.4 million to hire an additional 330 correctional officers during this fiscal year to staff a prisons system the U.S. Justice Department harshly criticized in an audit last fall.
The additional staffing is part of a plan to phase-in 880 more guards by the end of calendar 2025 to improve staff-to-inmate ratios from one officer for every 14 inmates to one officer for every 11.
In a 94-page audit report following a multi-year investigation, the feds accused Georgia’s prison system of violating inmates’ constitutional rights by failing to protect them from widespread violence.
Early this month, Gov. Brian Kemp proposed to address the problems identified in the audit with $372 million in new funding for the Department of Corrections, a combination of adding staff and upgrading deteriorating prison infrastructure.
On Monday, state Rep. Al Williams, D-Midway, said the public has lost confidence in the prison system because of chronic short staffing.
“People don’t have faith in our ability to fix the prison system,” Williams told his colleagues on the House Appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over public safety.
Oliver said the system currently has 2,600 vacant positions, too many to fill in a single year.
“We didn’t get here overnight,” he said. “We won’t get out of it overnight. … (But) these budget recommendations are a step in the right direction.”
Williams also was skeptical about a request for $96 million to design and build four 126-bed modular correctional units to house inmates who must be moved out of brick-and-mortar prisons slated for renovation projects.
“A modular unit isn’t going to be as solid as brick and mortar,” he said. “There’s no way it’s going to last 30 years.”
But Oliver said the modular units the corrections agency plans to use — manufactured by Galveston, Texas-based ModCorr LLC — shouldn’t be confused with modular homes.
“They’re not like modular units,” he said. “These are hardened prefab fortresses.”
While the modular units slated for prison use can be fixed or mobile, Oliver said the state plans to put them in permanent long-term locations. Specific sites for the units have yet to be selected.
Oliver also asked for $35 million for drone detection equipment to target a problem that has become rampant in the prison system: drones that drop contraband including cellphones inside prison walls for inmates to retrieve and use.
Oliver said inmates, including members of prison gangs, use cellphones to order hits on rival gang members inside and outside of prison walls as well as to smuggle illegal drugs into prison.
“Cellphones are considered a deadly weapon inside prisons,” he said. “They’re a very lucrative business.”
The subcommittee will send its recommendations on public safety spending to the full House Appropriations Committee to consider along with the rest of Kemp’s $40.5 billion fiscal 2025 midyear budget, which covers state spending through June 30.
This story comes to GPB through a reporting partnership with Capitol Beat News Service.