Prison system failures have cost Georgia taxpayers nearly $20M

State settles claims involving deaths or injuries to incarcerated men and women.

Since 2018, the state has paid out nearly $20 million to settle claims involving death or injury to prisoners in facilities operated by the Georgia Department of Corrections.

The cases involve a range of allegations, including improper medical care, the failure to protect prisoners from violent attacks and failure to monitor and care for prisoners who died by suicide in their cells.

Attorneys who have represented family members said the deaths are a symptom of widespread problems in Georgia’s prison system.

“The state has to take a long, hard look at just a complete overhaul of the correctional system and look at everything it can do to make it safer, to actually fulfill the purpose of a prison,” said Darl H. Champion, an attorney who represented the family of Agnes Bohannon, whose family alleged she complained for days of illness but didn’t get adequate care and died days later. The state paid $1.5 million to settle the case.

The problems of violence, understaffing, lack of rehabilitation and poor medical care are all tied together, Champion said. If prisons are understaffed and violent, he said, those serving time aren’t reformed, recruiting qualified staff becomes more difficult and health care providers simply don’t want to take jobs in prisons, so health care suffers, too.

“If you compartmentalize these problems and look at them separately, it’ll never get fixed,” Champion said. “You’ve got to look at the whole thing and see how it’s all related.”

The AJC obtained data on payments reported as settlements of prison-related cases by the Georgia Department of Administrative Services. The state agency administers a self-funded liability insurance program that covers state entities and employees. In some cases, the AJC learned of additional amounts included in a settlement on top of what the state’s insurance program paid, and the AJC included that amount in the settlement total listed below.

These are the largest settlements reported and the year the cases were finalized, according to DOAS records. The amounts do not include legal fees and other expenses incurred by the state.