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Georgia prisons: Rep. Matt Hatchett explains why you should care about them
(Design: Brittney Phan)
Key Points
- Georgia is among nation’s top five states with most state prisoners
- Special House study panel will assess safety, security, conditions of Georgia’s prisons
- Fiscal year 2025 budget includes nearly $1.5 billion for state prisons
With nearly 47,000 state inmates, Georgia is among the nation’s top five states with the most prisoners.
In addition to a mushrooming prison population, Georgia’s prison system is rife with aging facilities, understaffing and criminal activities among inmates and staff.
Gov. Brian Kemp last month announced an in-depth, systemwide look at the state’s 34 prisons. The Georgia Department of Corrections then hired Chicago-based correctional facility consultant Guidehouse Inc. It was hired a day after an inmate at Smith State Prison in Glennville fatally shot a food-service worker before killing himself, adding to the deadly string of violence at Smith, which had more homicides last year than any other state prison. Six inmates died there between March and August 2023, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation.
This week, House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, announced the creation of the Special Subcommittee of Appropriations on State Prisons.
“The General Assembly has placed significant emphasis on improving the safety, security and conditions of our state-operated corrections facilities,” Burns said in a press release announcing the subcommittee. “With Gov. Kemp’s ongoing assessment of Georgia’s prisons, we want to ensure we are prepared to take immediate action when subsequent recommendations and appropriations requests are delivered in January or during the interim. I look forward to the work of the committee and its support of efforts to restore law and order to Georgia’s prison system.”
Rep. Matt Hatchett, R-Dublin, chairman of the influential House Appropriations Committee, was tapped to head the seven-member subcommittee, which is part of Appropriations.
Hatchett and the subcommittee have their hands full.
More than 3,500 assaults between inmates have occurred in Georgia state prisons between 2021 and 2023, according to state prison records and news reports. Ninety-eight inmates were killed during that time.
As the state prison population has steadily grown over the past four years, those prisons have seen high turnover rates among corrections officers — higher than the Georgia state employee average, according to the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute. And pay increases have yet to stop the exodus.
To ease some of the crowding, a new $436.9 million, state-of-the-art Washington State Prison is being built near the existing facility in Davisboro, 139 miles southeast of Atlanta in middle Georgia. It is expected to house up to 3,000 — double the number of beds in the current facility. The Georgia State Prison in Reidsville closed in February 2022 due to its aging infrastructure and the need for a safer facility to house violent criminals.
State Affairs spoke with Hatchett about the committee’s work over the next few months. The conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
Q. Why was the subcommittee formed?
A. It was formed to be in line with the governor’s evaluation and study of the prisons. We just want to make sure that the money we’ve been putting in there for improved security at the prisons and technological things … are getting done, along with all the recommendations and things that may come from the governor’s study. We want to be in lockstep as much as we can.
Q. Is the committee studying the maintenance or living conditions of prisons?
A. It’s looking at all the pieces. If we get reports that we need more money to get the infrastructure better maintained, then that’s what it’s for. If it’s for improving technology or more prison space, then that’s what it’s for. Some of the prisons we have are beyond repair. The committee will look at everything and make sure we’re on board.
Q. As a legislator, what is the biggest concern you have about state prisons?
A. My biggest concern is that they are secure. People aren’t in prison because they did something good. Our public safety is job one. We need to make sure these prisons are secure, and anything we need to do to make sure they’re secure, we need to do. We need to be informed and we need to know about it. That’s my goal: to make sure we know everything we need to know and we’re giving them the resources they need to get it done, be it salaries or anything.
Q. What are the committee’s goals?
A. The goal is just to ensure that we’re providing the resources and that our corrections system is functioning as it needs to function.
Q. Georgia is short-staffed in many parts of its corrections system. Thoughts?
A. It’s a national issue. But, yes, we are short. The last time I talked to the commissioner [of the Georgia Department of Corrections, Tyrone Oliver] about that, they were improving their numbers of officers.
Q. What do you as chairman hope to accomplish through the committee?
A. To help the commissioner be more staffed and make sure they’ve got those resources they need.
Q. Why should the average Georgian be concerned about Georgia’s state prisons?
A. There are prisons all throughout our state, and making sure they’re secure is for your safety. You hear periodically about so-and-so has escaped. You always hope that’s not your neighborhood, right?
Q. And state prisons are some of the bigger employers in some of the small towns, right?
A. Correct.
Q. What type of recommendations are you looking to give to the Legislature?
A. I’d say that’s yet to be determined.
Georgia’s state prisons: By the numbers
State prisons: 34
Prisoners: Nearly 47,000
Prisons under construction: 1 — the new Washington State Prison being built near the current facility in Davisboro is expected to house up to 3,000 inmates
Additional prisons coming under Georgia Department of Corrections: 1 — McRae Women’s Facility in McRae
State prisons housing women: 4*
Fiscal year 2025 budget: $1.48 billion
*Includes a medical facility for pregnant women, two treatment facilities and a probation detention center.
Note: The Georgia Department of Corrections also has contracts with two private prison companies — Corrections Corporation of America, now known as CoreCivic, and GEO Corporation.
Source: Georgia Department of Corrections
Notable Georgia state prisoners
Georgia state prisons have housed numerous notable inmates over the years, including activists and killers. Here are some who’ve spent time behind bars in Georgia:
- Martin Luther King Jr. Held at Georgia State Prison in Reidsville after a sit-in at Rich’s department store in Atlanta in 1966, King was released on a $2,000 bond.
- H. Rap Brown. Also known as Jamil Al-Amin, Brown was an activist and chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the 1960s. He was held in Georgia State Prison.
- Wayne Williams. Sentenced to life for killing two men during the time of the Atlanta Child Murders in the early 1980s, Williams is at Telfair State Prison.
- Brian Nichols. The Fulton County Courthouse shooter who killed a judge, court reporter, sheriff’s deputy and a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, Nichols is in the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison near Jackson.convicted for disobeying the state’s law restricting white missionaries from living in Cherokee territory without a state license
- Samuel Worcester and Elizur Butler. The two Northern missionaries did hard labor in the Georgia Penitentiary at Milledgeville in 1831 for refusing to leave the Cherokee Territory. The pair provided legal and political advice to the Cherokee Nation in the 1820s and 1830s as Georgia was trying to remove the Cherokees from the state. They were convicted for disobeying the state’s law restricting white missionaries from living in Cherokee territory without a state license.
Georgia’s most populated state prisons
| Prison | Prisoners* | Capacity | Location |
| Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison | 2,864 | 2,487 | Jackson |
| Wilcox State Prison | 1,845 | 1,827 | Abbeville |
| Macon State Prison | 1,768 | 1,762 | Oglethorpe |
| Dooly State Prison | 1,715 | 1,702 | Unadilla |
| Calhoun State Prison | 1,664 | 1,677 | Morgan |
| Coastal State Prison | 1,583 | 1,836 | Garden City |
| Johnson State Prison | 1,580 | 1,612 | Wrightsville |
| Washington State Prison | 1,557 | 1,548 | Davisboro |
| Rogers State Prison | 1,455 | 1,391 | Reidsville |
| Ware State Prison | 1,437 | 1,546 | Waycross |
| *Population as of July 1, 2024 | |||
The Matt Hatchett Files
Titles: Republican representative for District 155, which includes Laurens and Johnson counties in middle Georgia; chairman of the House Appropriations Committee
Residence: Dublin
Age: 58
Education: Graduated from Presbyterian College with a Bachelor of Science in Applied Mathematics with an economic emphasis
Occupation: Director of mission enhancement with the School of Medicine for Mercer University
Interests: “I love to hunt but don’t have much time to do it. I love working in my yard. I like helping people.”
Family: He and his wife Kim have two grown daughters
Have questions, comments or tips? Contact Tammy Joyner on X @lvjoyner or at [email protected].
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