Reports are coming out of Georgia that prison guards have retaliated with violence in response to the Georgia Prison strike that took place last month. According to Georgia State NAACP President Edward Dubose, inmates have been beaten with hammers and other foreign objects allegedly in retaliation for their participation in the strike. President Dubose says that one inmate has been beaten beyond recognition and another has suffered significant brain damage.

"They said they [officers] were hitting inmates with hammers," Williams told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "They [guards] said an inmate was trying to escape."

The Department of Corrections has remained stoic and silent on the matter, even to the point of denying that a prison strike ever took place. But advocates for inmate human rights have argued all along that the conditions in Georgia prisons are simply unacceptable.

"Family members are frantic and mothers are crying and anguished after learning their loved ones have been badly injured. We cannot allow those cries to go unanswered," said President Dubose. "Since the start of the December 9 peaceful work stoppage and appeal for reform and respect for human rights, some inmates have been targeted and others have simply disappeared. We are urging the Department of Corrections and Governor-Elect Nathan Deal to act now to halt these unjust practices and treat these men like human beings."

In the course of the strike, the inmates demanded access to education, better healthcare, fair parole decisions, the right to a fair wage for their work (which is currently unpaid), job training programs and an escape from cruel and unusual punishment. Although inmates are not paid for their labor, many of them are charged for routine healthcare and phone calls to their families. Some have argued that it is inconsistent for someone who is unpaid for their work to be expected to pay for prison services. In a conversation I had with President Dubose, he mentioned that there are reports of inmates even being forced to shine shoes for guards and give them haircuts, which he connects to a form of slavery.

The Concerned Coalition to Respect Prisoners' Rights held a press conference earlier this week to respond to the reports of violence against inmates. One of the conference co-chairs, Elaine Brown, said "These new developments have increased our fears and our legitimate call for more access to inmates."

The group, in conjunction with the NAACP, plans to file a lawsuit or civil rights complaint about the abuses taking place against inmates.

"We believe there's more" abused prisoners, DuBose told the Atlanta Journal Constitution. "They [prison officials] won't let us get close to them."

While the individual case of the Scott Sisters was certainly significant in its own right, the Georgia Prison strike represents the greatest opportunity for reform of our nation's broken criminal justice system. Nearly every African American in this country has a brother, sister, father, child or other relative who has had their future crippled by the historically-slanted justice system here in the United States. The time is now to support the efforts of inmates to at least ensure that they are given access to basic human rights and the opportunity to come back to their communities as productive members of society. This is not a black thing or a criminal thing, it's an American thing.

One of the points being consistently made on this issue is that helping inmates have access to basic human rights is not a matter of being soft on crime. At this point, the prison industrial complex is the largest creator of criminal activity in our society. When inmates are left uneducated, sexually/physically abused, unemployed and permanently marginalized from society, their likelihood of committing crime is that much greater. Being tough on crime means being tough on recidivism, and right now, the prison system is solely designed with a profit motive that provides incentives for incarcerating as many people as possible. That is why the United States is a world leader in the number of people it has behind bars. Apathy from citizens and lawmakers is one of the tools being used by corporation captains to make money off slave labor (yes, this is literally slave labor, since the 13th Amendment clearly states that slavery is allowed for those who've been convicted of a crime). The temptation to enslave more Americans only grows with globalized wage pressure from nations like China and India, leading some corporations to lay off workers so they can "hire" prison inmates for almost nothing.

President Dubose informed me that Congressman John Lewis took the liberty to reach out and offer support. It is my greatest hope that other members of the Congressional Black Caucus will see the urgency of this matter in their own states and do the same. Additionally, Attorney General Eric Holder and President Barack Obama should have it impressed upon them that there is a very serious and urgent need for the two most powerful black men in America to directly confront the system that is destroying the lives of so many black boys. One of out of every three black boys born this decade is expected to spend time in state or federal prison. We must all come together to save them.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and the "Never Going Back" initiative to challenge mass incarceration. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.