Several Georgia prisons are on lockdown, and visitations have been canceled, due to gang violence, according to the state Department of Corrections.
They say that includes Hancock State Prison, Macon State Prison in Oglethorpe, and Telfair State Prison.
According to the news release, the lockdowns began after a June 11 murder at Calhoun State Prison. Three inmates and a correctional officer are charged with murdering an inmate in his cell. Inmate Joshua Brooks died from a blow to the head, according to the state.
Nine days later, the state agency said, 16 inmates at Smith State Prison were treated in local hospitals after fights broke out among several gangs inside the prison. No one was seriously injured.
The Department of Corrections says other fights, some of them gang-related, have happened at Macon, Hancock, Telfair, Autry, Valdosta and Ware State prisons.
All those prisons are now on lockdown and visitations are canceled.
The Department of Corrections says they're reassessing conditions in those prisons after the holiday weekend.
