# Bolted In: Georgia Prisons Lock the Fire Exits, and the State’s Own Inspectors Keep Finding Them Locked > State fire inspectors found barrel bolts on every fire exit at Ware State Prison in June and told GDC to remove them. In August they found the bolts still there, new ones on the dorm doors, empty control rooms and staff without keys. Inside Georgia's prisons, the same hardware is on the cell doors. **Published**: 2026-09-02 **Source**: https://gps.press/bolted-in-georgia-prisons-lock-the-fire-exits-and-the-states-own-inspectors-keep-finding-them-locked/ **Author**: Leo Alexander --- On Monday, August 24, 2026, two inspectors from the Georgia State Fire Marshal's Office walked into Ware State Prison in Waycross for the second time in two months. They came because of a complaint, the second anonymous complaint the office had received about the same thing: steel rods barring the exit doors closed. Warden James C. Spann walked the buildings with them. They found what the complaint described. Barrel bolts on every fire exit door of the housing buildings. New since June: sliding barrel bolts on the main entrance and exit doors of the dorms as well. The doors that were supposed to be beyond the reach of the men inside were, the inspectors wrote, "readily accessible to the inmates." The control rooms that were supposed to release them weren't always staffed. And when the inspectors asked to go through the gates that lead out of the areas of refuge, some of the prison staff escorting them didn't have the keys. ((Office of Commissioner of Insurance and Safety Fire, Safety Fire Inspection Report File 26-009306, Follow-Up #1, Aug 24 2026, obtained by GPS under the Open Records Act, [https://gps.press/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/mcp-pathimport-9931191baef0.pdf](https://gps.press/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/mcp-pathimport-9931191baef0.pdf) )) The inspectors marked "Means of egress of approved type" as Non-Compliant, the same box they'd checked on June 23. They scheduled another follow-up in about 30 days. Then they left, and the bolts stayed. This is one prison and one inspection file. It's also the clearest public record yet of something people inside Georgia's prisons have described to GPS for years: doors that are supposed to open in a fire are held shut with hardware from a farm supply store, and the people who could open them aren't there. ## What the state's inspectors wrote down The Office of Commissioner of Insurance and Safety Fire released its Ware file to GPS in response to an Open Records Act request: two inspection reports and eight photographs. The reports are two pages each. They're worth reading in the inspectors' own words. The first inspection, on June 23, was a complaint investigation. Building Code Inspector James Holbrook and Building Inspections Supervisor Mitchell Williams toured the prison with Warden Spann, GDC Fire Chief Reynold Spradley and other GDC staff. They cited one violation, against section 23.2.11.1.7 of the 2024 Life Safety Code, and described it this way: > GASFMO Inspections Staff observed barrel bolts on all fire exit doors on housing buildings. Prison staff explained that the barrel bolts are in use due to inmates popping the locks from inside the building. Prison staff also explained that inmates are not supposed to have access to these doors from inside the building. ((Office of Commissioner of Insurance and Safety Fire, Safety Fire Inspection Report File 26-009306, complaint inspection, June 23 2026, obtained by GPS under the Open Records Act, [https://gps.press/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/mcp-pathimport-d24fdc350f3b.pdf](https://gps.press/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/mcp-pathimport-d24fdc350f3b.pdf) )) Every housing building except one, Building I, had bolts on its fire exits. Chief Spradley told the inspectors he'd written the bolts up himself, that the key locks had been repaired, and that men inside tampered with the locks and popped them again soon after each repair. The follow-up on August 24 found the same violation and more of it. The inspectors saw only two buildings on that visit, because those were the two GDC staff led them to, but GDC's own staff told them the violations were on all the dorm buildings. The report records what the interviews turned up: > Further inquiry and interviews of GDC staff revealed that there are times where prison guards are not continuously posted in the control room of each dorm building, and staff response can vary based on the prison guards assignment outside of his/her normal assigned duties for the dorms. It was also observed that some of the support staff accompanying the GASFMO Building Inspections Division did not have the proper keys to unlock the gates that lead from the areas of refuge on one of the dorm buildings inspected and on one of the main entrance/exit doors on another dorm building inspected. ((Safety Fire Inspection Report File 26-009306, Follow-Up #1, Aug 24 2026, [https://gps.press/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/mcp-pathimport-9931191baef0.pdf](https://gps.press/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/mcp-pathimport-9931191baef0.pdf) )) While they were inside, the inspectors also noted things that weren't the reason for the visit: sprinklers showing leakage, corrosion or damage; open electrical junction boxes; egress paths that weren't kept clear; damaged fire-alarm notification devices in the dorms. Warden Spann and Chief Spradley told them GDC's own regional fire inspectors had been through around August 13 or 14. The state asked for a copy of that report. It hadn't received one when the report was written. The notice printed at the bottom of each report says all violations "shall be corrected immediately." The only penalty the form spells out is the fee for coming back: follow-up inspection fees of $150 or $220, "due payable in advance for second, third, and subsequent inspections." ![Large slide bolt on a dorm main entrance and exit door at Ware State Prison, photographed by state inspectors on August 24, 2026](https://gps.press/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/mcp-pathimport-ea1d08d39453.jpg) *State inspectors' photograph, released under the Open Records Act. The state's caption: "Large slide bolt operated from inside control room on main entrance/exit doors."* ## The rod in the sally port The complaint that brought the inspectors to Ware came from inside. A relative of a man held there described the mechanism to GPS in late August. Each cell house, he said, has two ways out, a front door and an exit door. The exit door carries a lock on the outside. Inside the sally port, a steel rod more than a yard long slides through a ring and is worked from the control station. Fire drills, he said, are rare, and when they happen the men go out the front door, never the exit. After the June inspection, a program manager in the Safety Fire Division's building inspections program wrote to him that the inspection "did indeed find issues with the egress doors" and that Ware had been instructed to "remove all noncompliant locking devices immediately." His family told him the rod was still there after the deadline passed. The state's August photographs settle that. One of them is captioned, by the state, "Large slide bolt operated from inside control room on main entrance/exit doors." Another shows a Medeco key cylinder on a red fire exit door, its keyway damaged. The state's caption for that one: "Damaged key cylinder from inmates tampering with cylinder on interior fire exit doors." ![Damaged key cylinder on an interior fire exit door at Ware State Prison, state inspection photograph, August 24, 2026](https://gps.press/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/mcp-pathimport-79046ac9eba3.jpg) *The state's caption: "Damaged key cylinder from inmates tampering with cylinder on interior fire exit doors."* GDC's explanation, recorded twice by the inspectors, is that men inside pop the locks, so staff bolt the doors. That's a security problem with a fire-code answer, and the code's answer isn't a barrel bolt. The Life Safety Code section Ware was cited under allows a key lock on a door from an area of refuge to the outside on three conditions: the keys are maintained, they're available at the facility at all times, and the lock can be worked from the outside. A bolt thrown from a control room that isn't always staffed meets none of them. Ware held 1,438 people at the last count GPS has, in a prison whose original design capacity was 500. ((GPS facility page, Ware State Prison, [https://gps.press/facility/ware-state-prison/](https://gps.press/facility/ware-state-prison/) )) Four men died there in May 2026 alone, three of them killed by other people and one found hanging. [GPS mortality data](https://gps.press/mortality-data/) ## It's not one prison, and it's not only the exit doors The photographs below weren't taken at Ware and weren't taken this year. A man inside a Georgia state prison took them in 2022 and got them out to GPS. They show a cell door: a perforated steel window, a push-bar handle, and across the frame a heavy sliding barrel bolt, with a padlock through the hasp. ![Barrel bolt and padlock on a cell door inside a Georgia state prison, 2022](https://gps.press/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/mcp-pathimport-68e672df1f8a.jpg) *Photographed inside a Georgia state prison in 2022 and provided to GPS.* ![Second view of the padlocked barrel bolt, Georgia state prison, 2022](https://gps.press/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/mcp-pathimport-35b5a45a26a9.jpg) He described the routine. At night the bolts were thrown on the cell doors. During a long lockdown, the padlock went on the bolt to hold it. And once the bolts were locked at night, there were no officers in or around the building until breakfast. GPS has kept receiving the same description since, from different prisons: - In March 2026, a source at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison reported that E House was being locked down from roughly 4 a.m. to 4 p.m. with padlocks on the cells, and that other houses were following. A visitor confirmed to GPS in April that the E House cells carried padlocks. - In May 2026, a family member at Calhoun State Prison reported that during the most recent lockdown, men were padlocked into their cells. - In August 2026, a report from Washington State Prison described men locked in their rooms with a deadbolt held by a D-ring, inside a dorm no one had tried to leave. At some prisons, people inside have told GPS, staff have swapped the padlocks for carabiner clips, which come off faster. The bolt is still a bolt. None of this is news to the federal government. The U.S. Department of Justice's October 2024 findings report on Georgia's prisons said so in plain terms: > Our observations during facility site inspections, as well as information received from staff interviews, confirm that GDC sometimes inappropriately uses padlocks on cell doors, apparently due to broken primary locks. Using padlocks on cell doors is a violation of national correctional standards, and GDC's fire safety inspections have identified doing so as a violation. This practice exposes incarcerated people to an unacceptable risk of harm in the event of a fire or other emergency, because of the additional time it would take to evacuate. ((U.S. Department of Justice, Findings Report: Investigation of Georgia Prisons, Oct 1 2024, page 37, [https://www.justice.gov/d9/2024-09/findings_report_-_investigation_of_georgia_prisons.pdf](https://www.justice.gov/d9/2024-09/findings_report_-_investigation_of_georgia_prisons.pdf) )) DOJ added that when its investigators asked about padlocks, staff answers were inconsistent, and that some staff denied padlocks were used on cell doors at prisons where DOJ had seen them itself. ((DOJ Findings Report, page 38, [https://www.justice.gov/d9/2024-09/findings_report_-_investigation_of_georgia_prisons.pdf](https://www.justice.gov/d9/2024-09/findings_report_-_investigation_of_georgia_prisons.pdf) )) Among the remedies it listed: "Ensure that all prisons can remove incarcerated persons from cells during normal movement and during emergencies while maintaining cell-door security." ((DOJ Findings Report, page 83, [https://www.justice.gov/d9/2024-09/findings_report_-_investigation_of_georgia_prisons.pdf](https://www.justice.gov/d9/2024-09/findings_report_-_investigation_of_georgia_prisons.pdf) )) Five months after the DOJ report, a man incarcerated in Georgia wrote about the padlocks for Filter under the byline Jimmy Iakovos. "Rather than fix them, GDC puts padlocks on the doors," he wrote. "GDC is not supposed to do that." He described fires at his prison as a roughly bimonthly event. ((Jimmy Iakovos, GA Prisons Padlock Our Cells. Will We Die in a Fire? Let's Ask a Lockpicker, Filter, March 25 2025, [https://filtermag.org/ga-prisons-padlock-our-cells-will-we-die-in-a-fire-lets-ask-a-lockpicker/](https://filtermag.org/ga-prisons-padlock-our-cells-will-we-die-in-a-fire-lets-ask-a-lockpicker/) )) ## What the rules actually require Georgia's minimum fire safety standards are set by rule of the Safety Fire Commissioner, and they adopt the National Fire Protection Association's Life Safety Code, NFPA 101, 2024 edition, with state amendments. ((Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 120-3-3-.04, State Minimum Fire Safety Standards with Modifications, [https://www.law.cornell.edu/regulations/georgia/Ga-Comp-R-Regs-R-120-3-3-.04](https://www.law.cornell.edu/regulations/georgia/Ga-Comp-R-Regs-R-120-3-3-.04) )) That's the standard printed on both Ware reports. Jails and prisons are on the statute's list of buildings "presenting special hazards" that the standards cover. [O.C.G.A. ยง 25-2-13](https://gps.press/ocga/25-2-13/) The Life Safety Code's chapter on existing detention and correctional occupancies assumes the doors are locked. What it regulates is how fast they open. For the most restrictive use conditions, it requires that the release mechanisms be arranged so that, with the minimum staff available at any time, the locks can be released within two minutes. Remote release is the norm; key locks on the doors from areas of refuge to the outside are the narrow exception, and only if the keys are kept at the facility at all times and the lock works from the outside. ((NFPA 101 Life Safety Code 2024, Chapter 23, Existing Detention and Correctional Occupancies, as adopted in Georgia, [https://up.codes/viewer/georgia/nfpa-101-2024](https://up.codes/viewer/georgia/nfpa-101-2024) )) A barrel bolt has no release mechanism. A padlock on a barrel bolt has one key, somewhere. Two minutes with the minimum staff on duty is the test, and a cell block of padlocks with one officer in the building fails it before the officer finds the ring. GDC's own policy says much the same thing. Its Departmental Fire and Life Safety Program requires that "manual and electric locks on exit doors shall be maintained in working order," that "keys for manual locks to means of egress shall be maintained in working order and will be identifiable by sight and touch," and that "all monthly tests of emergency locks and keys shall be documented." ((GDC SOP 511.03, Departmental Fire and Life Safety Program, [https://gps.press/sop-data/511.03/](https://gps.press/sop-data/511.03/) )) Its evacuation-plan policy requires every facility's written plan to identify "the control room where the emergency keys are located" and requires monthly fire drills at different times of day so that all correctional staff take part. ((GDC SOP 511.09, Facility Fire Safety/Emergency and Evacuation Plan, [https://gps.press/sop-data/511.09/](https://gps.press/sop-data/511.09/) )) Set those requirements beside the August 24 report: control rooms not continuously staffed, escorting staff without the keys to the refuge gates, a bolt on the main door worked from a room that may be empty. The policy describes a system. The inspectors described what's there. ## What fire does inside a locked cell On October 28, 2020, Thomas Henry Giles set his mattress on fire in his cell at Augusta State Medical Prison. Two officers watched. Neither put the fire out, called it in, or took him out of the cell. He was left in the smoke for hours and died of it. The state paid his family $5 million to settle the lawsuit in November 2023. ((Prison Legal News, $5 Million Settlement in Death of Georgia Prisoner Left by Guards in Cell on Fire, June 1 2024, [https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2024/jun/1/5-million-settlement-death-georgia-prisoner-left-guards-cell-fire/](https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2024/jun/1/5-million-settlement-death-georgia-prisoner-left-guards-cell-fire/) )) The medical examiner ruled the death a homicide. ((DOJ Findings Report, page 75, [https://www.justice.gov/d9/2024-09/findings_report_-_investigation_of_georgia_prisons.pdf](https://www.justice.gov/d9/2024-09/findings_report_-_investigation_of_georgia_prisons.pdf) )) In August 2025 a federal grand jury indicted the two former officers, Robert Roberson and Marcus Phillips, for leaving him in the locked cell. ((AJC, Former Augusta correctional officers charged in inmate's fatal cell fire, Aug 2025, [https://www.ajc.com/news/2025/08/2-ex-officers-at-augusta-prison-face-federal-charges-in-inmates-death/](https://www.ajc.com/news/2025/08/2-ex-officers-at-augusta-prison-face-federal-charges-in-inmates-death/) )) On June 3, 2026, a federal jury acquitted them both. ((WRDW, Former Augusta State Medical Prison guards acquitted in inmate death, June 3 2026, [https://www.wrdw.com/2026/06/03/former-augusta-state-medical-prison-guards-acquitted-inmate-death/](https://www.wrdw.com/2026/06/03/former-augusta-state-medical-prison-guards-acquitted-inmate-death/) )) Giles's cell had a working lock. The officers had the key. He died anyway, because no one used it. Now picture the same cell with a barrel bolt across the frame and a padlock on the bolt, and the officer with the padlock key somewhere else in the prison. Georgia's records hold other fires. On December 8, 2020, emergency services were called to Georgia State Prison for a man burned over 90 percent or more of his body after a phone he'd set on the metal flap of his cell door caught fire and lit his clothes. ((DOJ Findings Report, page 32, [https://www.justice.gov/d9/2024-09/findings_report_-_investigation_of_georgia_prisons.pdf](https://www.justice.gov/d9/2024-09/findings_report_-_investigation_of_georgia_prisons.pdf) )) At the same prison, Christopher D'Corro Ward, 29, died on May 25, 2021; the AJC's investigation lists the cause as carbon monoxide poisoning from smoke inhalation together with methamphetamine toxicity, and notes an incident report showing a fire. ((AJC, Death behind bars: how Georgia prisoners are being killed, [https://www.ajc.com/news/investigations/ga-prison-homicides-a-list-of-those-killed-in-georgias-prison-system/FLCH6BL3ZZDLPKRBHBKTEPOVFU/](https://www.ajc.com/news/investigations/ga-prison-homicides-a-list-of-those-killed-in-georgias-prison-system/FLCH6BL3ZZDLPKRBHBKTEPOVFU/) )) Six months later, on November 30, 2021, Lamont Avery Morris, 33, died there too. The GBI medical examiner's report, obtained by GPS, gives the cause as carbon monoxide poisoning due to smoke inhalation and rules the manner an accident, not a homicide. ((GPS mortality data, GBI Division of Forensic Sciences report obtained under the Open Records Act, [https://gps.press/mortality-data/](https://gps.press/mortality-data/) )) In December 2023, video circulated of a fire set the day before in the sally port of a housing unit at Phillips State Prison while men milled around it. ((DOJ Findings Report, page 7, [https://www.justice.gov/d9/2024-09/findings_report_-_investigation_of_georgia_prisons.pdf](https://www.justice.gov/d9/2024-09/findings_report_-_investigation_of_georgia_prisons.pdf) )) In late August 2026, GPS received an account through social media of a dorm fire at Augusta State Medical Prison in which one man is said to have gone into the smoke repeatedly to drag others out while officers stayed outside. GPS hasn't been able to confirm that account, its date, or how many people were involved, and doesn't present it as established. It's included here for one reason: the people telling it took for granted that officers wouldn't go in. The Ware reports describe the doors those officers would have had to open. ## The keys Every layer of hardware GDC adds is another key. The primary lock has a key. The barrel bolt, if it's the kind with a keyed hasp, has a key. The padlock has a key. In a building where, as the state found at Ware, the control room isn't always staffed and the escorting officers didn't have the keys to the refuge gates on a scheduled inspection with the warden present, the question in a fire at 2 a.m. isn't whether the code was followed. It's how many locks stand between the men and the door, and where the ring is. People inside describe the same scene over and over: officers hunting for the right key while a dorm fills with smoke from a burning mattress. GDC's own policy anticipated it. That's why 511.03 requires the emergency keys to be "identifiable by sight and touch" and tested monthly, and why 511.09 requires the plan to say which control room holds them. A padlock bought this month isn't on any of those lists. ## What happens next The state's inspectors are due back at Ware around the end of September for a second follow-up. GPS has asked the Safety Fire office for two more things it requested in its original filing and didn't receive: the office's correspondence with GDC about the Ware doors since June, including any plan of correction the prison submitted, and a list of every other GDC facility where the Safety Fire Division has found an egress or exit-obstruction violation since January 2024, and whether each is resolved. The office hasn't yet said whether such records exist. There's a third record no one outside GDC has seen: the regional fire inspection GDC's own staff said they conducted in mid-August, the one the state inspectors asked for on August 24 and didn't get. If you have a loved one in a Georgia prison, ask them a specific question: is anything besides the regular lock holding your cell door or your dorm's doors shut at night? A padlock, a sliding bolt, a barrel lock, a clip? Which building? GPS wants to know, and it will not publish who told it. --- ## Call to Action: What You Can Do Awareness without action changes nothing. Here's how you can help push for accountability and real reform: **Join the GPS Advocacy Network**: Sign up at [https://gps.press/become-an-advocate/](https://gps.press/become-an-advocate/) and we'll advocate on your behalf every week. GPS identifies your state legislators, crafts personalized letters on the most pressing prison issues, and sends them directly to the representatives who represent you. You receive a copy of every letter. It takes two minutes to sign up, and we handle the rest. **Send a 60-Second Message**: Pick an issue, get a ready-to-edit message with the verified facts already in it, and email your state House representative and senator directly from your own inbox at [https://gps.press/send-a-message/.](https://gps.press/send-a-message/.) No signup, nothing stored. It takes about a minute. **Tell My Story**: Are you or a loved one affected by Georgia's prison system? GPS publishes first-person accounts from incarcerated people and their families. Submit your story at [https://gps.press/category/tellmystory/](https://gps.press/category/tellmystory/) and help the world understand what's really happening behind the walls. **Contact Your Representatives**: Your state legislators control GDC's budget, oversight, and the laws that created these failures. Find your Georgia legislators at [https://gps.press/find-your-legislator/](https://gps.press/find-your-legislator/) or call Governor Kemp at (404) 656-1776 or the GDC Commissioner at (478) 992-5246. **Demand Media Coverage**: Contact newsrooms at the AJC, local TV stations, and national criminal justice outlets. More coverage means more pressure. **Amplify on Social Media**: Share this article and tag @GovKemp, @GDC_Georgia, and your local representatives. Use #GAPrisons, #PrisonReform, #GeorgiaPrisonerSpeak. **Message the Board of Corrections**: The citizen board that oversees the GDC publishes no contact details for its members. GPS built the missing front door: pick a board member and a policy message and send it from your own email at [https://gps.press/write-the-board/.](https://gps.press/write-the-board/.) **File Public Records Requests**: Georgia's Open Records Act gives every citizen the right to request incident reports, death records, staffing data, medical logs, and financial documents. Start with the GPS Action Toolkits at [https://gps.press/toolkits/.](https://gps.press/toolkits/.) The Open Records Toolkit walks you through what to ask for, gives you ready-to-file request templates, and tells you what to do when the state says no. File directly with GDC at [https://georgiadcor.govqa.us/WEBAPP/_rs/SupportHome.aspx.](https://georgiadcor.govqa.us/WEBAPP/_rs/SupportHome.aspx.) **Attend Public Meetings**: The Georgia Board of Corrections and legislative committees hold public meetings. Your presence is noticed. **Contact the Department of Justice**: File civil rights complaints at [https://civilrights.justice.gov.](https://civilrights.justice.gov.) Federal oversight has forced abusive systems to change before. **Support Organizations Doing This Work**: Donate to or volunteer with Georgia-based prison reform groups fighting for change on the ground. **Vote**: Research candidates' positions on criminal justice. Primary elections often determine outcomes in Georgia. **Contact GPS**: If you have information about conditions inside Georgia's prisons, reach us securely at GPS.press. --- ## Further Reading **[Death at a Locked Gate: Georgia Fences Men In, Then Locks the Only Way Out](https://gps.press/death-at-a-locked-gate-georgia-fences-men-in-then-locks-the-only-way-out/)** *Corey July was chased across the Hancock State Prison yard and cornered at a locked gate. The gate worked exactly as designed.* **[Blood on Blood: Georgia Statewide Prison Lockdown](https://gps.press/blood-on-blood-georgia-statewide-prison-lockdown/)** *How the spring 2026 lockdown played out across the system, and what it meant for the people locked behind the doors.* **[The Quiet Purge: Calhoun Edition](https://gps.press/the-quiet-purge-calhoun-edition/)** *Classification data and transfers at Calhoun State Prison, one of the prisons where families have reported padlocked cells.* **[When Warnings Go Ignored: How Georgia Prison Deaths Became Predictable and Preventable](https://gps.press/when-warnings-go-ignored/)** *The pattern of documented warnings that preceded deaths in GDC custody.* **[The Fight to Survive: Inside Georgia's Deadly Prison Crisis](https://gps.press/the-fight-to-survive-inside-georgias-deadly-prison-crisis/)** *The conditions the DOJ found unconstitutional, and what they look like from inside.* **[What's Really Behind Georgia's Prison Crisis?](https://gps.press/whats-really-behind-georgias-prison-crisis/)** *Staffing, overcrowding and deferred maintenance: the system that produces broken locks and improvised fixes.* --- ## GPS Intelligence System The GPS Intelligence System maintains living research profiles that aggregate data, news, settlements, and analysis on Georgia's prisons and the issues defining them. The profiles below provide deeper context for the issues raised in this article: **[Conditions](https://gps.press/intelligence/issue/conditions/)** *Physical plant, maintenance, and living conditions across Georgia's prisons, including the broken locks that padlocks and bolts are meant to replace.* **[Deaths in Custody](https://gps.press/intelligence/issue/deaths-in-custody/)** *GPS's living record of deaths in GDC custody, including the smoke-inhalation deaths cited in this article.* --- ## Explore the Data GPS makes GDC statistics accessible to the public through several resources: - **[GPS Statistics Portal](https://gps.press/gdc-statistics/)**: Interactive dashboards translating complex GDC reports into accessible formats, updated within days of official releases. - **[GPS Lighthouse AI](https://gps.press/ask-ai/)**: Ask questions about Georgia's prison system and get answers drawn from GPS's investigative archive and data analysis. - **[GPS llms.txt](https://gps.press/llms.txt)**: A single machine-readable index of every GPS data resource, published using the open llms.txt standard. Point any AI tool (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity) at this URL and the model can navigate to facility profiles, intelligence briefs, mortality records, statistics, and the full investigative archive, with no other configuration needed. It is the fastest way to ground an AI conversation in verified GPS data. - **[GPS Public MCP Server](https://data.gps.press/mcp)**: For AI tools that support the Model Context Protocol (Claude, ChatGPT, and others), connect directly to GPS's data: 12 read-only tools covering population, facilities, mortality, parole, the Georgia Code, settlements, and more. Every answer arrives with its source link and citation built in. For a walkthrough of how to put these resources to work with AI, see **[How to Use GPS Data with AI Tools](https://gps.press/how-to-use-gps-data-with-ai-tools/)**: a step-by-step guide for researchers, advocates, families, and journalists analyzing Georgia prison conditions, statistics, and policy with tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. Contact GPS at media@gps.press for access to underlying datasets used in this analysis. --- ## About Georgia Prisoners' Speak (GPS) Georgia Prisoners' Speak (GPS) is a nonprofit investigative newsroom built in partnership with incarcerated reporters, families, advocates, and data analysts. Operating independently from the Georgia Department of Corrections, GPS documents the truth the state refuses to acknowledge: extreme violence, fatal medical neglect, gang-controlled dorms, collapsed staffing, fraudulent reporting practices, and unconstitutional conditions across Georgia's prisons. Through confidential reporting channels, secure communication, evidence verification, public-records requests, legislative research, and professional investigative standards, GPS provides the transparency the system lacks. Our mission is to expose abuses, protect incarcerated people, support families, and push Georgia toward meaningful reform based on human rights, evidence, and public accountability. Every article is part of a larger fight: to end the silence, reveal the truth, and demand justice. ![GPS Footer](https://gps.press/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/GPS-Ad2.jpg) ---