Davisboro, Georgia– 12 prisoners were charged with murder and other crimes In a fight Four inmates were killed and dozens injured at a Georgia state prison in January, corrections officials confirmed Monday.
The fight broke out on January 11 in an outdoor area of Washington State Prison, a medium-security facility in Davisboro, about 130 miles (210 kilometers) southeast of Atlanta. The Department of Corrections said at the time that guards used non-lethal weapons to quell the fighting, bringing the situation under control in about 90 minutes.
In addition to murder, the 12 inmates are also charged with aggravated assault, gang participation and unlawful acts of violence in a penal institution, department spokeswoman Joan Heath said in an email. She did not provide further details and said the investigation was still ongoing.
The fight came less than two years after a 2024 U.S. Justice Department report said Georgia prison officials were “willfully indifferent” to unverified deadly violence, widespread drug use, extortion and sexual assault in the state’s detention centers.
The report, which followed a civil rights investigation, found that sophisticated gangs operate black markets in prisons to smuggle drugs, weapons and electronic devices such as drones and smartphones. Investigators also noted a rise in the number of homicides in Georgia prisons, rising from seven in 2018 to 35 in 2023.
State officials denied they violated inmates’ constitutional rights at the time of the 2024 report, but Corrections Commissioner Tyrone Oliver and others acknowledged that the COVID-19 pandemic led to a staffing crisis in state prisons as several prison guards resigned. The state has pumped more than $600 million in new spending into the Department of Corrections in recent years. That has helped hire more guards, but the prisons chief told lawmakers in December that the state was still 1,000 guards short of recommended staffing levels.