The Warden Shall Notify: Who Georgia’s Prisons Keep in the Dark, and the Law That Lets Them

A 1984 rule says the warden shall notify a prisoner’s family when he is badly hurt. Family after family since December 2024 found out instead from an intern, a contraband phone, other prisoners or Facebook. The Department told the men at Autry there was no outbreak. And the statute that makes every inmate file a state secret is missing the one sentence the Parole Board’s has.

When Nobody Comes: Surviving Georgia’s Prisons

Nine contributors describe what daily survival requires inside Georgia custody: boots worn into the shower, lunch carried back from breakfast, a fire alarm ringing into an empty post, and medication missed behind a locked door. Much of what keeps people alive is done by other prisoners.

Georgia Parole Board Rejects Constitution

Editorial cartoon: a parole board official with scissors prepares to cut the line "The Board may parole anyone 62 or older" out of a scroll labeled Georgia Constitution, saying "Never heard of it," while an elderly prisoner stands at a barred window. Caption: 32 years. Zero paroles.

In 1994, 81% of Georgia voters gave the parole board constitutional authority to parole anyone 62 or older — an exception written into the same amendment that created life without parole. Thirty-two years later, the Board has no rule, no process, and no record of ever using it once.

Five Hours in a Shower Stall

Georgia’s own death investigators recorded what happened to four men at Washington State Prison. A man locked alone in a shower stall to cool down. A cell unchecked for fourteen hours. A tray at 10:19 nobody rose for. In each case the response to a medical crisis was a placement, not treatment.

The Cure Exists: A 41-Year-Old Died of Hepatitis C in a Georgia Prison

An amber prescription bottle stands in warm morning light on a pale surface, with several white oval tablets spilled beside it — direct-acting antivirals, the medication that cures hepatitis C.

Torrey Wayne Forrester died at 41 in a Georgia prison of cirrhosis caused by chronic hepatitis C — a disease curable since 2014. The Justice Department found Georgia treating roughly ten percent of the people it knew were infected. Georgia’s own profile shows it has not tested more than half the people in its custody.