Prisoners report beatings in retaliation for December protests

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By Rhonda Cook and Joel Anderson

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Inmate advocates and relatives said guards at one state institution have retaliated with violence against prisoners who staged a protest and refused to report to work details last month.

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State prisoners at work in Jonesboro in April, 2010. Lack of pay for work was one issue that inmates said prompted a sit-down strike in four state prisons in December.

Johnny Crawford, Jcrawford@ajc.com State prisoners at work in Jonesboro in April, 2010. Lack of pay for work was one issue that inmates said prompted a sit-down strike in four state prisons in December.

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Marie Williams, whose son is at Smith State Prison in Tattnall County, said another inmate called her on her son’s behalf over the weekend to report what had happened.

“They said they [officers] were hitting inmates with hammers,” Williams told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Tuesday. “They [guards] said an inmate was trying to escape.”

The Department of Corrections did not respond to the AJC’s request for comment, but an agency spokeswoman denied the allegations in a comment to the New York Times.

“We are a law enforcement agency and do everything possible to uphold, not break, laws,” the DOC spokeswoman told the Times.

Tensions in some prisons date back to early September when tobacco was banned throughout the prison system. Inmates began planning a protest for Dec. 9. Once the date arrived, the list of grievances also included the quality of the food and the lack of fruits and vegetables, the level of medical care, the availability of education and job training programs, parole decisions and overall conditions.

The NAACP, which has been investigating inmates’ complaints and their allegations of abuse, said the organization plans to file a lawsuit or a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice that included reports that handcuffed inmates were assaulted.

State NAACP President Ed DuBose said prison guards had beaten at least three inmates so badly that one was in a hospital intensive care unit, another required staples in his head and a third was beaten beyond recognition.

“We believe there’s more” abused prisoners, DuBose said. “They [prison officials] won’t let us get close to them."

“It’s now confirmed that Georgia prisons are in need of reform,” DuBose said Tuesday afternoon. “We always receive complaints about things in prison, but we never dreamed it was to this magnitude.”

Williams, the mother, said an inmate called her from inside a prison cell block using a smuggled cell phone he had bought from an officer.

It’s a felony for an inmate to possess a cell phone. Yet more and more prisoners are buying them from officers -- and their families pay the bill for service -- rather than place expensive collect calls from a prison phone that is available for only a limited number of hours each day.

Some inmates say they use the contraband phones to stay in touch with family. But officials say prisoners also use the phones to reach inmates in other institutions, to call witnesses or to continue their criminal activities.

Williams said her son does not have a cell phone, but he passed a note to another inmate with a message for her.

Williams said her son’s dorm had been locked down since the weekend.

“From that day [the protest started], things have not been the same,” she said.

The protest began with prisoners refusing to leave their cells for work assignments or other required programs. Prison officials responded by implementing a lock down at four institutions.

Six days later, on Dec. 15, inmates agreed to end their protests and the lockdown was lifted.

Prisoners who contacted The Atlanta Journal Constitution said they had talked with prison officials about their concerns and wanted to give administrators time to address their issues.

Inmates told the AJC last month after the protest ended that the next disturbance could be violent if officials ignore their grievances.

“The next time it would be pretty bad and it was not going to be inmate on inmate; it would be inmate on administration,” said the inmate who identified himself only by his first name, Mike.