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In-depth reporting on Georgia’s prison crisis — data-driven investigations, policy analysis, and the stories that need to be told.
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They Told the People in Charge. Then They Left.
Former Georgia prison officers, sergeants and supervisors say the same thing on the record: they warned the people in charge, the answer was paperwork, and the ones who wouldn't sign it left. A federal judge found false records. The state's own payroll shows the exodus...
GPS Is Asking District Attorneys to Find Out What Prison Staff Knew
When a man is killed in a Georgia prison, someone may be charged with the stabbing, but almost nobody asks what the staff knew. GPS is asking district attorneys to review every prison homicide for staff who were warned, and putting wardens on notice...
When Prison Staff Work for the Gangs
Before Zeary Davis was killed at Dooly State Prison, GDC's Commissioner had a written warning and the deputy warden and a captain had calls. Georgia law already has charges for staff who ignore a known danger. District attorneys should be asking who knew, and what they did...
Three Deaths; Three Days; Macon State Prison
Three men were reported killed at Macon State Prison from October 21 to 23. GDC has acknowledged one of them, Juld Carter. A week later it locked down more than two dozen prisons, Macon among them, and described a fight at Hays where nobody died. Here's what the state has said, and what people inside describe...
Seconds to Kill, the Rest of Your Life to Pay: The Murder Charge in Zeary Davis’s Death
Zeary Davis died on the floor of his dorm at Dooly State Prison in September 2024. A grand jury has indicted Qwinterrious Dodson on murder charges in his death. In five prison killings GPS has followed to a sentence, four men got life without parole and the fifth got life...
“There Was No Ordinary Day”: Rachelle Terry on Life Inside Pulaski State Prison
Rachelle Terry spent almost two years at Pulaski State Prison. We sent her eight questions about the dorms, the medical care, the staffing and the classes. Here are her answers, in her own words, alongside what the state's own records show...
A Woman Died of Tuberculosis at Pulaski State Prison. Families Had Been Warning for Ten Days.
GDC has confirmed that a woman held at Pulaski State Prison died of complications of tuberculosis. Families had been warning since October 13. Here's what the state has said, what families report from McRae and Pulaski, and what GDC's own TB policy requires...
“There Is No Good Time”: Georgia’s Prisons Are in Crisis, and the State Won’t Let People Earn Their Way Home
GDC tells people in prison that programs can shorten a sentence. The Parole Board's handbook says Georgia has no good time at all. In a prison system the DOJ calls unconstitutional, Justice Reed reads the state's own paper and lays out a law that would cut sentences in half for people who earn it...
Prison Phone Scams Are Adding Years to Georgia Sentences
Two men at Calhoun State Prison just added 26 years and 8 months of federal time for a jury-duty phone scam, on top of the Georgia sentences they were already serving. Here's how the time adds up...
Georgia Can’t Block Its Way Out of Prison Phone Scams. Let the Phones In, and Listen.
Georgia's prisons can't block or seize their way out of phone scams. GPS argues for registered, monitored phones inside, with lawyers excluded, backed by the state's own arrest reports and the DOJ's findings...
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