Georgia Sens. Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock have opened a new inquiry with the U.S. Department of Justice about the number of inmate deaths in prisons in Georgia and across the United States.
According to a statement from the senators, Ossoff and Warnock are urging U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to update federal laws for tracking and preventing the deaths of people in federal and local custody.
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In their statement, the senators referenced a previous effort to investigate prison deaths in the United States that found nearly 1,000 uncounted deaths of inmates in state and local custody in 2022.
The bipartisan probe, which worked on uncovering the information for 10 months, also found that the USDOJ had failed to implement the Death in Custody Reporting Act, which is meant to track data and prevent inmate deaths at prisons nationwide.
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