Calls for Prison Reform
Video clip of protesters outside Georgia State Capitol urging wages to be paid to Reidsville prisoners for their labor, Sept. 22, 1978. Courtesy of Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection, WSB-TV newsfilm collection.
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Article advocating for reforms to Georgia's prison system, particularly its sentencing of non-violent, first-time offenders. The Red and Black, Mar. 28, 1974, p. 3.
Courtesy of Georgia Newspaper Project, Georgia Historic Newspapers.
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Announcement of the Georgia State Department of Transportation discontinued use of prison road gangs beginning July 1, 1973. Forsyth County News, May 30, 1973, p. 15.
Courtesy of Georgia Newspaper Project, Georgia Historic Newspapers.
Protests and publications calling for changes to the prison system put pressure on Georgia officials to institute further reform with a particular focus on those imprisoned for minor offenses, juveniles in adult prisons, the use of roadside work gangs, and wages for prisoners’ labor. In 1963 Georgia governor Carl E. Sanders initiated a rehabilitation center with a vocational school to be built in Alto for juvenile males under the age of twenty-one. The Georgia Department of Transportation discontinued its use of road gangs in 1973. And protests outside the State Capitol in 1978 urged Georgia to pay its prisoners a wage for their labor.