VALDOSTA — A Georgia senator has introduced federal legislation to tackle a problem long complained about by families of the state’s prison inmates: lack of notice when incarcerated loved ones are ill or dead.

The “Family Notification of Death, Injury, or Illness in Custody Act” was introduced into the Senate Wednesday by Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) and Sen. John Kenney (R-La.). The bill would require the U.S. Department of Justice to issue “central guidance” to the Federal Bureau of Prisons and local and state institutions, a statement from Ossoff’s office said.

A similar bill had been introduced into Congress in 2022 but failed to make it past the Senate’s judiciary committee.

“Parents, children, and siblings deserve to know about the well-being of their family members. However, our current prison system does not require correctional facilities to notify the families of incarcerated people if their loved ones are seriously ill, injured, or deceased,” said Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif).

 

Kept in the dark

Families kept in the dark about inmate relatives is a complaint long lodged against Georgia’s prison system. In 2018, The Valdosta Daily Times, together with other Georgia newspapers, investigated the situation.

At the time, Jordan Fisher, a 22-year-old woman in Canton, talked to The Times about the death of her father, Thomas Willis, an inmate who died in Valdosta State Prison.

Fisher said she had never met her father; he ran out on her mother when she was pregnant. Nonetheless, she eventually tried to open a dialog with the man with a letter — only for the letter to be returned, stamped “Return to sender; inmate dead.”

Attempts to get details on her father’s death were futile

“When I called (Valdosta State Prison), I was crying, and they laughed at me and said ‘How old are you?'” she said. What she knows about her father’s death came from letters his cellmate wrote to her, claiming Willis killed himself because “officers did not do their job,” Fisher said.

Requests by the newspaper for results on an investigation into Willis’ death and an autopsy were turned down by state prison officials on grounds that they were “confidential state secrets.”

One document the corrections department did share was a brief incident report on Willis’ death.

According to the report, an inmate was beating on his cell door, yelling that his cellmate was dead; Willis was found hanging from a light fixture by a sheet.

The 2018 multi-newspaper investigation turned up several other instances of families not finding out the fate of inmate relatives from official sources.

 

Policy statements

A Georgia Department of Corrections document from 2015 details standard procedures in the event of an inmate’s death. 

A segment of the document titled “Notifications Required in Natural Death Cases” outlines who get notified when an inmate dies. Along with the local coroner and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, it says the prison warden has to inform the next of kin.

Next of kin also have to be notified in the event of a death in “unusual circumstances” such as sudden or violent death, including suicides, the document says.

The same document also says that in all offender deaths, “The facility shall provide the next of kin with a Certificate of Death.”

A separate document from the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council issued in 2023 states that for deaths in custody under the jurisdiction of the State Board of Corrections, including violent deaths, next of kin should be “promptly” notified and provided with Certificates of Death.

The Times reached out to the Georgia Department of Corrections for information on current prison policies about inmate notification; the department had not yet responded as of press time.