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The focus on rehabilitation is the key to successful prison reform

As someone who has dedicated his life's work to promoting justice and fairness for all people, I believe Georgia is at a critical turning point where the well-being of the people who live and work in our prisons becomes a top priority.

Georgia's prisons and corrections system are facing crisis-level challenges, from understaffing to overcrowding, from crumbling infrastructure to underfunded mental health care. This is a complex problem that extends beyond prison walls, and solving it will require a multifaceted approach and multi-agency collaboration.

Addressing the massive overcrowding in our facilities will require coordinated efforts from prosecutors, judges, police, and local communities as we watch prisons become dumping grounds for people we don't know what to do with. Instead of using our crisis hotlines and community-based resources for people in mental health crises, police forces are being asked to step in and handle sensitive situations they're not supposed to handle in their jobs. Our legal professionals are being overwhelmed with caseload after caseload of people who need medical attention, not incarceration. People with mental health care needs are being pushed into overcrowded jails and prisons instead of being sent to hospitals or treatment centers to get the mental health care they need.

Law enforcement, prosecutors, and judges have tremendous power to become good stewards of those who truly need mental health care rather than prison. We need to work together to keep people out of prison who don't deserve to be there in the first place, and we need to do it at the neighborhood level, using the community resources we have at our disposal.

In the prison system, there is a clear connection between safety in our correctional facilities and the mental health of those in our care. The stress and trauma of incarceration exacerbates existing mental illnesses and, in many cases, contributes to new ones. We must provide compassionate, comprehensive mental health services and psychiatric care as a standard part of Georgia's prison system. As someone who works daily on the streets of Atlanta with people suffering from substance use disorders, I have seen firsthand the transformative impact of implementing detoxification programs and providing greater access to addiction treatment medications across the state. Our prison system must evolve to meet these needs and put more Georgia citizens on the path to full rehabilitation.

Georgia prides itself on fiscal responsibility, but I believe that repeated failures to invest in our corrections system are not only costly but fiscally irresponsible—and deadly.

Investing in improved education and job training programs for inmates and improving the decaying and unsafe environments in which they live is a smart investment in the future safety of all Georgians. Continuing to underfund education and job training programs in prisons will only perpetuate the cycle of recidivism and overcrowding, depriving people of the tools they need to reintegrate into society and leading them right back to the horrific living conditions they face in our prisons. Living and working in dilapidated buildings with internal temperatures well above 100 degrees or below, sleeping in rooms filled with human excrement, going without basic medical care, and trying to survive severe malnutrition exacerbate mental health problems and create an environment of extreme violence. Those who serve and live in correctional facilities are dying. This is unacceptable.

The path to reform may not be politically expedient, but it is critical to the future of our state. The lives of those in our care and the well-being of our communities depend on our shared commitment to treating all people justly, fairly, and compassionately. As we begin our work in the Senate Committee on the Safety and Welfare of All Persons in the Department of Corrections, I urge my parliamentary colleagues of both parties, Governor Brian Kemp, the Department of Corrections, countless law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, judges, and all people of good conscience to join me in this work to ensure we take all necessary steps to improve our correctional system.

If we do not care for the most vulnerable among us, we fail as a society. Georgia can and must do better.

Senator Kim Jackson, a Democrat, represents the 41st Senate District, which includes parts of DeKalb County and a small portion of Gwinnett County.

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