On March 9, someone made a rare escape from a Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC) probation detention center. He was back in custody by March 10, shortly after he ran a red light in a stolen vehicle in front of state troopers. Those of us who have been in GDC custody a while know that no one escapes for long, but the possibility of escape still brings a kind of hope for those who have not yet been here a while. This was the case with a new guy we’ll call Kid.
“Let’s blow this joint,” said Kid.
“What? You got weed?” asked Ace*.
“Pretty crowded dorm, Kid, you better get some knee pads,” joked Bee*.
“Escape, old man,” said Kid. “I’m saying we should just … leave.”
The old men looked at each other, then back at Kid. “No.”
Kid was insistent. “Why not? There are barely any guards. Dudes are going all the way to the last fence almost every night to pick up [contraband] drops and not getting caught. All it takes is a two-foot hole and we’re out of here. It’ll be a week before any guards notice.”
“Then what?” asked Bee.
The two old men began poking at the holes in Kid’s plan. How would he leave the area—steal a car while his mugshot is plastered all over the nightly news? Even if his mom picked him up, they reasoned, would she be bringing him cash? A phone? Change of clothes? ID? Or would he end up trying to steal those things, while his mugshot is all over the nightly news?
The 2024 Department of Justice investigation into GDC highlighted how, among a few other problems, Georgia prisons are full of literal holes—in the fences, in the walls, in the ceilings—and rely on padlocks to close the doors because the actual locks haven’t worked in years.
The amended mid-year budget for 2025 included $34,262,515 “for design and construction to replace locking control systems at various facilities.” Between that and the 2026 budget working its way through the legislature, we’re looking at around $77 million to fix the locks and significantly more when adding in all the other repairs. And these things should get fixed, but not because we’re all going to break out of here otherwise. There are many opportunities to escape. Most who’ve been here a while know better than to take them.
In December of 1981, Willie Lee Austin was granted a furlough from Central State Prison over Christmas and decided not to go back. He headed to Florida, assumed a new identity, started a family and a furniture business, and reportedly lived as a model citizen for 34 years before he was recaptured by Florida state troopers in 2015.
It’s remarkable that someone on the run managed to stay out of trouble that long. And surprisingly, the 2015 Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles noticed that. They weighed it against the 15-year sentence he’d originally been serving for armed robbery and, four months after he was picked up, granted him parole. But of course Austin’s case is a rare one, and over the past decade the Board has only become less generous.
Kid wasn’t ready to let it go. “I’ll work construction,” he replied stubbornly. “Day labor for daily pay.”
“That’s pocket money hustling to buy into the drug trade,” said Bee. “But because you’re hot—fresh out of prison, on-the-run hot—there’s no one going to front you an ounce of Kool-Aid much less actual product.”
“Without [ID] there is no property. No apartment. Nothing from Rent-2-Own,” said Ace. “Even when you get money, you’ll need someone to spend it for you.”
No health insurance of course, but it wouldn’t be safe to go to an emergency department even if he was gravely sick or injured.
Kid said he’d head to small towns where he knew people, he wouldn’t be walking sidewalks in Atlanta in broad daylight waiting for cops to catch him.
“Even the small towns, its the corporate cameras that the police also have access to,” said Bee. “ATMs and drive-thrus, vending machines and doorbells. In addition to the [cameras] watching traffic, or attached to school buses and car dashes. As well as the body cams … there’s no way to not have your picture taken in public.”
”I’d be surprised if it wasn’t a fugitive squad that gave you a ride back to the prison while you were still trying to find that phone you needed,” said Ace.
“You fuckers are depressing,” said Kid.
“This criminal reality often is, Kid,” said Ace. “You’re sitting in your retirement home 40, 50 years too soon. You want to escape prison? You got to escape the life that leads you to prison. Cause this place is the center of gravity, man; if you are not fighting against coming to prison then you are circling the drain-hole waiting to fall in.”
Names have been changed for sources’ protection.
Top image (cropped) via Georgia Department of Corrections/YouTube. Inset images (cropped) via United States Department of Justice.
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