Nearly 200 Georgia state prison employees have been arrested for job-related crimes since the beginning of 2020, according to a list obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Of the 195 Georgia Department of Corrections employees arrested through June 30, 143 are state certified police officers, mostly corrections officers.
That includes 69 arrested related to drugs. Most appear to be prison employees who brought drugs into prison, often to provide to inmates. The drug arrests include 41 for marijuana, 11 for marijuana and methamphetamine, and nine for meth alone. In one case, two employees tried to smuggle meth inside a prison in a Hot Pocket frozen turnover.
There were 21 arrests for battery, including four employees arrested at Rutledge State Prison in Columbus for beating a handcuffed prisoner.
Nine employees were arrested for sexual assault, including four assaults of prisoners at Lee Arrendale State Prison in Alto, Georgia’s largest women’s prison. Under state law, a prison guard can be charged with sexual assault even if the prisoner consents.
Two teachers were arrested, including DaShawn Melvin, who was a GED instructor at Pulaski State Prison in Hawkinsville until he was fired in April after he was arrested on charges that he was trying to bring contraband into the prison for a gang-affiliated inmate.
Melvin testified in June that he had inappropriate sexual contact with that inmate as well as a half-dozen others, but his statements — made in a Fulton County...
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