For fiscal year (FY) 2023, Gov. Brian Kemp proposed a $1.27 billion budget for the Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC), an agency tasked with overseeing the state prison system. Additionally, as part of a bi-agency operation to purchase and build new state prison facilities, he proposed an additional $167.7 million for the Georgia Building Authority to manage the acquisition and construction of GDC facilities, resulting in a total budget of $1.44 billion in fiscal 2023. From 1997 to 2007, Georgia’s harsh crime policies impacted GDC’s population growth, increasing spending by $335.2 million annually.[1] The latest budget proposals for the coming fiscal year and revised current year signal a return to a similar policy approach and aim to more than double the previous decade of spending increases.
Following Gov. Nathan Deal’s criminal justice reform efforts in 2012, a number of important legislative, programmatic and regulatory changes were implemented. These shifts were designed to reduce the length of incarceration while expanding parole and parole eligibility. In May 2021, GDC reported a total prison population of 42,795, down 23 percent from December 2019, following a modest population decline from 2012 to 2019.[2],[3] The significant decline in the prison population through mid-2021 is due in part to measures taken in response to COVID-19, including an increase in early releases coupled with a drop in crime and arrest rates. Since May 2021, GDC’s prison population has grown by 7 percent since GDC reported a population of 45,592 on January 28, 2022.[4] This recent population growth is the result of increases in two subpopulations of the state prison system: those in county and private prisons.[5]
While Black Georgians make up only 32.6 percent of Georgia’s population, they make up 59 percent of GDC’s prison inmates.[6] Georgia’s legacy of slavery, segregation, Jim Crow, racial criminalization and punishment through excessive policing in communities of color, racially biased punishment in school systems, and historic disinvestment in communities of color have all contributed to the disproportionate representation in prison of the state’s black residents.[7] To reverse these injustices and differential impacts, budget makers must make racial justice a central goal of budgetary policy.
GDC is among several agencies that have proposed major spending increases in fiscal 2023, a recourse of operations under Gov. Kemp’s 4 percent and 6 percent budget cuts for amended fiscal year (AFY) 2020 and fiscal 2021, respectively, and modest spending increases in FY 2022 spending was still $82.9 million below FY 2020.[8] For FY2023, GDC has proposed spending increases that offer $5,000 in cost of living adjustment (COLA) increases for eligible full-time employees; benefit increases for eligible employees and retirees; increases in daily rates for private prisons; and funding for the maintenance and repair of capital, technology projects, and transportation hubs for existing state prison facilities. Overall, GDC’s FY2023 budget is $1.27 billion, an increase of $59.3 million over FY2020 funding. Unique compared to past fiscal years, however, are additional spending proposals housed at the Georgia Building Authority (GBA) aimed at managing and using additional funds for upcoming GDC-specific operations.
Through the numbers
Revised budget for fiscal year 2022
Compared to pre-pandemic levels in fiscal 2020, total spending under the Georgia Department of Corrections proposal and GBA spending dedicated specifically to GDC facility projects represents an increase of more than $428 million or 35 percent. Changes include:
- A one-time $40.1 million funding increase to cover $5,000 in pay increases for all full-time, eligible GDC employees.
- $4.1 million for a one-time increase in funding to replace 107 depreciated vehicles and obsolete police equipment.
- $5 million for 72 vehicles for regional delinquent transportation hubs.
- $29 million to replace GDC radio communication systems and wireless infrastructure upgrades at all state prison facilities.
- More than $432 million has been allocated and administered by the GBA to help GDC purchase prison facilities and facilitate the construction of a new state penitentiary.
Budget for the 2023 financial year
Total spending for the Georgia Department of Corrections in the proposed FY2023 budget would raise the level of funding well above pre-pandemic levels as it is $59.3 million more than FY2020 spending, including that for the GBA proposed funds specifically earmarked for the purchase and financing of construction of new state prisons. The provisions include:
- An increase in funding of nearly $55 million to cover the $5,000 increase in living expenses for eligible employees.
- A $4.6 million increase in funding to allow eligible employees to retire up to 40 hours of annual vacation time.
- A $45.7 million funding increase for capital preservation and repairs.
- $6.7 million for engineering projects to advance the health and safety of offenders.
- $19.1 million to cover retirement benefits and 401(k) employer-match increases for employees.
- More than $167 million in bond funds allocated and managed by the GBA to support the impact of the GDC budget.
The FY2023 budget significantly increases spending levels compared to the budgets adopted in FY2022, which show significant spending cuts to date compared to pre-pandemic levels. The latest proposed spending signals a damaging shift toward higher incarceration rates and leaves questions about how spending for AFY 2022 and FY 2023 can provide long-term solutions to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Georgia’s state prisons. Fiscal 2023 proposals alone would be more than $142 million higher than fiscal 2022 spending and nearly $307 million more when combined with the Georgia Building Authority’s proposed prison-building spending would. When the same combined fiscal 2023 spending proposals are compared to pre-pandemic levels in fiscal 2020, they are more than $227 million higher than fiscal 2020.
Combining the AFY 2022 and FY 2023 proposals for GDC and GBA, which cover general fund spending and bond financing for prison construction and general fund spending for staff and infrastructure upgrades, they make more than $817 million in additional spending by comparison for FY 2022. Despite nearly $1 billion in additional spending, these priorities do not lessen the additional multimillion-dollar financial burden placed on detained Georgians and their families. They help maintain a more than $5 million cut achieved in fiscal 2021 by increasing commission prices for jailed Georgians. This will further make access to basic necessities, including hygiene products, more difficult for detainees, especially amid a humanitarian crisis in prison made worse by the ongoing pandemic. They also fail to recover the $2.4 million cut in overall healthcare spending since fiscal 2020, raising questions about GDC’s priorities related to the health of inmates and prison staff, including the relevance of those cuts to hiring COVID data tracking of inmates; the unknown status of the medical co-payment waiver for inmates with health conditions related to COVID-19, which was initially granted in March 2020 but is unclear as to its continuation; and the general reduction in public health transparency despite waves of multiple ominous COVID-19 variants.[9]
Short-term spending decisions for the correctional system continue to clash with the long-term need to comprehensively assess the inmate population and health challenges. Such spending decisions often ignore the broader role of the criminal justice system in effectively addressing nationwide criminal challenges and in driving the vicious circles that the system purports to break. At this moment of comparatively high funding, lawmakers have an opportunity to more holistically assess the state’s long-term approach to prisons to such complex problems. A short-sighted approach that focuses solely on punishment and occasionally fabricates racist tropes will only increase mass incarceration and exacerbate the collateral suffering experienced disproportionately by Georgians of color.
endnotes
[1] Welsh, RZ (2008, January). Tough on Crime and the Budget, 2. https://gbpi.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20080111_ToughOnCrimeandTheBudget.pdf
[2] Georgia Department of Corrections. (2022, January). Friday report. http://www.gdc.ga.gov/sites/default/files/FridayReport-2022_01_28.pdf
[3] Georgia Department of Corrections. (2021, January). December 2019 inmate statistical profile. www.gdc.ga.gov/sites/all/themes/gdc/pdf/Profile_all_inmates_2019_12.pdf
[4] Georgia Department of Corrections. (2022, January). Friday report. http://www.gdc.ga.gov/sites/default/files/FridayReport-2022_01_28.pdf
[5] ibid.
[6] Georgia Department of Corrections. (2021, January). December 2019 inmate statistical profile. www.gdc.ga.gov/sites/all/themes/gdc/pdf/Profile_all_inmates_2019_12.pdf
[7] Pierson, E. Simoiu, C. Overgoor, J. et al. (2020, May). A large-scale analysis of racial disparities in police stops in the United States. Nature Human Behavior 4, 736-745. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-0858-1
[8] Khalfani, R. (2021, February). Overview: Fiscal year 2022 budget for the Georgia Department of Corrections. Georgia Budget and Policy Institute. https://gbpi.org/overview-2022-fiscal-year-budget-for-the-georgia-department-of-corrections/#ednref1
[9] Hering, T. (2022, February). COVID looks like it could stay. This means that the medical co-payments in prison must be eliminated. prison policy initiative. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2022/02/01/pandemic_copays/
