Policy & Advocacy

The Legislative Record: Justice Reinvestment and Its Reversal

Georgia's modern reform era began in April 2011, when H.B. 265 created the Special Council on Criminal Justice Reform for Georgians — a body with bipartisan representation from all three branches of government — along with the Joint Committee on Criminal Justice Reform [#14364, #19164]. The council worked through the Justice Reinvestment Initiative, a public-private partnership jointly funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Bureau of Justice Assistance, with technical assistance from Applied Research Services and the Crime and Justice Institute [#19165, #14388]. The state had no comprehensive performance measurement system to evaluate outcomes at the time [#14390].

H.B. 1176, signed by Republican Gov. Nathan Deal on May 2, 2012 and effective July 1, 2012, passed unanimously in both chambers [#14356, #14357, #19137]. It raised the felony theft and fraud threshold from $500 to $1,500 and the shoplifting threshold from $300 to $500; created two degrees of burglary, cutting the second-degree maximum from 20 years to 5 for a first conviction and 8 for a second; created degrees of drug possession with a graduated penalty scale, reduced minimum and maximum sentences for all drug weights, and removed drug possession from the recidivist statute; and created degrees of forgery, moving fourth-degree forgery into misdemeanor status [#14358, #14359, #14360, #14361, #14362, #14363]. The drug possession provisions were phased in during 2013 and 2014 [#14357].

Results were measurable. Prison commitments for offenses affected by the bill declined 13% and probation commitments fell 9%; mean prison and probation sentence lengths declined for most offenses, and initial trends showed declines in time served [#14322, #14404, #19146]. Deal-era reforms reduced the Black share of Georgia's incarcerated population from 62% in 2009 to 53% in 2017 [#3062], and the justice reinvestment initiative was credited with a 6% population reduction [#2112]. Deal-era reforms proved politically viable under a conservative Republican governor, demonstrating that decarceration can be bipartisan [#3956].

Later bills built on the framework. H.B. 310 merged probation and parole into a single state agency in 2015, creating the Department of Community Supervision [#14367, #6397]. SB 174 (2017) created Behavioral Incentive Dates — for first-time felony offenders, judges must specify a date at which probation can be reduced from an average of five years to no more than three if the person has no new arrests, has paid restitution, and has complied with conditions — and codified graduated sanctions for technical violations, capping revocations at 120 days for failure to pay or report, strengthening ability-to-pay inquiries, and barring pre-hearing arrest warrants where failure to pay is the sole basis [#6439, #6440, #6425]. SB 105 (2021) allowed early termination of felony probation after three years, signed May 3, 2021, with estimated annual savings of $34 million [#3217, #3220] — though eligibility required at least three years served, no new arrests beyond minor traffic offenses, no revocations in two years, and payment of all financial obligations, restitution, and court fees [#6463].

Then the trajectory reversed. The Kemp administration reversed the Deal-era approach, returning to a warehousing-first model and adding $214 million in GDC spending over two years [#2169]. In 2025 the legislature approved $634 million in new corrections spending — $434 million in the amended FY2025 budget plus $200 million in FY2026 — the largest corrections funding increase in Georgia history [#5197]. Governor Kemp had requested more than $600 million over 18 months, based on a Guidehouse assessment conducted with The Moss Group and Carter Goble Lee [#3137, #3256]; the allocation was $458 million in FY2025 and $144 million in FY2026 [#3257, #3258]. The package included a 4% salary increase for correctional officers, an 8% increase for behavioral health counselors, 330 additional workers, 446 beds plus modular units, a marketing initiative, a new training curriculum, and a statewide lock repair team [#3138, #3139, #3140, #3141, #3142].

The FY2026 budget put $805,000 into vocational education programs against more than $50 million for technology and security improvements [#3537]. The Georgia Budget and Policy Institute found the added spending failed to prioritize humane accommodations for incarcerated women and birthing people — including postpartum pumping rooms, lactation programs, and child-friendly visiting spaces — and that no fiscal proposal specifically addressed incarcerated Georgians' ongoing health access challenges despite nearly $100 million in proposed increases to prison health contract spending [#3060, #3075]. GBPI also noted that Georgia's pace of prison spending tracks its growth in policies placing more people under carceral control and debt, reinforced by over-policing and dependence on fines and fees revenue [#3078]. The Council on Criminal Justice Reform, created under Deal in 2013 and once a national model, saw its influence wane after he left office in 2019 [#3891].

Two 2025 laws stand apart. The Georgia Survivor Justice Act (HB 582), sponsored by Rep. Stan Gunter (R) and signed May 12, 2025, passed both chambers with only three dissenting votes total. It modernizes self-defense and coercion defenses to admit the full context of abuse history, reduces sentences for offenses punishable by life or death to 10–30 years with parole eligibility, and creates a retroactive resentencing pathway for offenses committed before July 1, 2025 [#5123, #2190, #2191, #2193, #2196, #2197]. It has been described as the nation's most comprehensive survivor justice legislation, and as of February 2026 Michigan advocates were pressing for a copy [#2192, #2233]. The Wrongful Conviction and Incarceration Compensation Act, added to SB 244 and signed May 14, 2025, made Georgia the 39th state with exoneree compensation [#4460, #3808]. It pays $75,000 per year of wrongful incarceration plus $25,000 per year for time on death row, is adjudicated through the Office of State Administrative Hearings, requires claimants to prove they did not commit the crime or any lesser included offense, and imposes a filing deadline of three years from exoneration or from July 1, 2025 [#4460, #4461, #2280, #2281, #4518]. The Act does not mandate reentry services — housing, healthcare, job training, or counseling — and applies only to people already exonerated [#3819, #4628]. Georgia had previously had no standardized process at all: exonerees needed a legislator to introduce an individual compensation bill [#4618, #4500].

The Post-Conviction Agenda: GPS's Model Legislation

Georgia's habeas corpus system is among the most restrictive in the nation [#3804]. In 2004, the General Assembly imposed a statute of limitations on habeas petitions for the first time in state history — one year for misdemeanors, four years for felonies, with death penalty cases exempted [#2333, #3748, #4224, #4225]. The deadline has no safety valve for actual innocence, newly discovered evidence, or constitutional violations discovered after it runs; even the federal AEDPA, enacted after the Oklahoma City bombing, preserves an innocence gateway and provides statutory tolling, newly discovered evidence triggers, and equitable tolling [#4223, #4226]. Texas imposes no statute of limitations for state habeas petitions, and California applies a reasonableness standard rather than a strict limit; New York's motion to vacate carries no strict time limit; North Carolina's Motion for Appropriate Relief has no general limit in non-capital cases [#4228, #4227, #4229, #4231]. This is not an accident of drafting: between 1973 and 2004, six restrictive statutes transformed Georgia's habeas remedy from a broad postconviction mechanism into an attenuated one available only in extraordinary circumstances [#4555, #4591].

The 2004 law was enacted without any documented justification — no committee report, no floor debate, no impact study, no analysis of affected petitions, no stated reason for choosing four years, no consideration of an innocence exception, and no input from innocence organizations, public defenders, or wrongful conviction scholars [#4246]. The absence of legislative history is itself the argument: a law that permanently bars innocent people from relief was passed without anyone considering that consequence [#4259].

H.B. 126 would have codified out-of-time appeals after Cook v. State (2022) eliminated the tool overnight and dismissed pending cases. It passed the House 172–1 and the Senate 46–7 — near-unanimous bipartisan support — and then died at 12:15 a.m. on sine die when the Senate substitute arrived with no time left for the House to act [#4022, #4023, #4024, #4025, #4405]. A 2023 Georgia Law Review article by Paxton Murphy called Cook "a true procedural tragedy" and pleaded with the General Assembly to pass H.B. 126 [#4021, #4251]. As of March 2026, no equivalent legislation had been enacted [#4022]. H.B. 176, signed May 14, 2025, finally codified out-of-time appeals and created a grace period allowing people whose appeals were dismissed because of Cook to refile before June 30, 2026 — but it did not address the judicial narrowing of the miscarriage of justice exception in O.C.G.A. § 9-14-48(d), the elimination of motions to vacate void convictions under O.C.G.A. § 17-9-4, the four-year deadline, separation-of-powers problems, conviction integrity review, or prosecutor accountability under Rule 3.8 [#4053, #4054, #4070, #4403].

GPS's proposed Georgia Post-Conviction Justice Act has five core elements: a statutory definition of "miscarriage of justice" for § 9-14-48(d); clarification that the exception overrides all procedural bars including the four-year deadline; an amendment to § 17-9-4 clarifying that "void for any cause" includes constitutional violations; statutory reversal of Harper v. State codifying the Chester interpretation; and codification of out-of-time appeals [#4033]. The proposed § 17-9-4 language is deliberately narrow: "For purposes of this Code section, 'judgment' includes both the conviction and the sentence. Nothing in this Code section shall be construed to distinguish between a void conviction and a void sentence. A criminal judgment that is void for any cause, whether as to conviction, sentence, or both, is a mere nullity" [#4113, #4085, #4101].

The strategic insight is that the argument shifts from creating rights to enforcing existing ones — "Georgia law already says that habeas relief SHALL be granted to avoid a miscarriage of justice. We are asking you to enforce your own law" [#4031]. The separation-of-powers framing transforms the ask from a prisoner-rights request into a claim about institutional prerogative, which appeals across the political spectrum because every legislator has an interest in the statutes they enact being respected [#4114, #4119]. Complementary proposals include an independent prosecutor oversight body outside the State Bar's general grievance process [#4548], an independent post-conviction review authority structurally insulated from the Attorney General and district attorneys [#4549], and annual reporting by the AG's Post-Conviction Litigation section on habeas petitions received, grounds asserted, dispositions, and any cases where the office encountered evidence suggesting a wrongful conviction [#4550].

The practical barrier is that a person claiming wrongful conviction encounters no institution with a structural incentive to discover the truth: habeas triggers AG opposition, a bar grievance enters a system partly governed by the AG, parole involves a board the AG represents, and legislative reform runs into the AG's institutional interests [#4547]. Chief Justice Nels Peterson's concurrence in Sanders v. State on March 3, 2026 declared the post-conviction system "a mess" and called on the legislature to fix it while acknowledging the courts "did a lot of the breaking" — an extraordinary invitation for legislative action [#4116]. On the ineffective assistance of counsel front, Georgia is the only state combining six restrictions: IAC must be raised at the earliest moment; if not, it must go to habeas; habeas has a four-year deadline; there is no actual innocence exception; there is no right to counsel in habeas; and public defenders are overwhelmed [#4205, #2311, #2344, #4179]. The 30-day motion-for-new-trial window typically arrives while the same attorney whose performance is challenged is still on the case [#4177, #4178].

Oversight: The Bill That Has Never Passed

No independent prison oversight bill has passed the Georgia General Assembly. House Bill 1504, introduced March 3, 2022 by Representatives McLaurin, Schofield, Beverly, Mitchell, Kennard and others, would have created an Office of the Department of Corrections Ombudsman and a legislative Corrections Oversight Committee, with a six-year ombudsman term, removal only by the Governor for good cause, and a 20-day department deadline to produce requested records [#8091, #19770, #19769, #19771]. BillTrack50 lists the bill as dead as of April 4, 2022 [#19773, #19774].

SR 570, adopted by the Senate 53–0 on February 27, 2024, created the Senate Supporting Safety and Welfare of All Individuals in Department of Corrections Facilities Study Committee, chaired by Majority Whip Sen. Randy Robertson (R-Cataula) [#8080]. The committee adopted its final report unanimously on December 13, 2024 [#8081] but explicitly declined to create an independent oversight body, with Robertson characterizing oversight and several other proposals as "redundant" [#8082]. A separate suggestion by Sen. Bearden to have the GBI investigate all in-custody deaths did not make the final list [#8083]. Committee member Sen. John Albers said: "Oversight is provided by regular committees, subcommittees and study committees, and I'm not sure we need to create yet another level [of bureaucracy]" [#19744].

That decision had a body count attached to it. Marquis Reshawn Jefferson died on May 11, 2022, at Washington State Prison; GPS's registry lists the cause as Homicide and his age as 26. According to GPS research, Jefferson was killed in an attack involving multiple incarcerated people, and his brother later obtained documents showing the prison was so understaffed that no one was watching the dorm when he was attacked — no one noticed until other incarcerated people carried his body to the door [#1439]. Sen. Bearden proposed exactly the mechanism that would have produced an independent account of that death, and the study committee dropped it [#8083].

Georgia's absence from the national oversight map is a measurable outlier position. About 20 states plus the District of Columbia now have an external, independent prison oversight body; Georgia is not among them, and NRCCO's inclusion criteria exclude bodies that report internally to prison authorities [#8106, #8040, #4662, #8053]. Nine states created new oversight bodies since 2018 [#8050], and at least 16 states considered 31 correctional oversight bills during the 2024 sessions alone [#8042]. The models are well documented. Washington's Office of the Corrections Ombuds sits within the Governor's office, reports directly to the Governor, and operates independently of the corrections secretary; the ombuds holds a three-year term removable only for neglect of duty, misconduct, or inability to perform, and has "golden key" access including photographing and video recording all areas of the facility [#8055, #8056]. Correspondence with the office is privileged in the same manner as legal correspondence, and no retaliatory action may be taken against anyone who communicates with it [#8058]. The Washington statute also makes oversight a cost-containment tool, framing it as a way to "effectively reduce the exposure of the department to litigation" [#8104]. Its limits are instructive: the Washington ombuds lacks subpoena power and relies on mandatory production timelines, whereas Minnesota's ombudsperson may subpoena testimony and documents and petition a state court to enforce [#8060, #8063]. New Jersey's ombudsperson, strengthened by the 2020 Dignity Act, holds authority to conduct scheduled and unannounced inspections of any part of any facility at any time, and reports are not subject to approval by any entity outside the office [#8061, #8062, #7992]. Maryland created the Office of the Correctional Ombudsman by SB 134 in 2024, housed in the Attorney General's office, with a 45-day written response requirement for agencies [#7985, #19807, #19803]. Hawaii's five-member commission is appointed by five separate authorities — Governor, Senate President, Speaker, Chief Justice, and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs chair — a capture-resistant design, though the Governor withheld funding until 2022, delaying all staffing [#8064, #8065]. Virginia makes grievance data a statutorily mandated public data stream held by a body independent of the corrections agency [#7984].

The cost of catching up is modest and quantified. GPS's planning range is $8–10 million per year for a credible office covering 114 facilities and roughly 53,000 people — between 0.42% and 0.52% of GDC's FY2025 actual budget of $1.91 billion [#8101, #8102]. New Jersey operates its office for approximately $2.8 million per year with 26 staff, a fraction of the cost of a single conditions settlement [#7699]. The named Georgia obstacle is straightforward: neither GDC nor the Governor's office has supported an independent office, and enabling legislation is required [#7702]. The structural substitutes are not substitutes. Per O.C.G.A. 42-2-2, the Board of Corrections consists of 19 Governor-appointed members who conduct no independent inspections, employ no monitors, and appoint the very official they would notionally oversee [#8077, #8078]. GDC internal investigation reports are classified as confidential state secrets unless declassified in writing by the Commissioner [#8079]. And in October 2024, the DOJ Civil Rights Division found reason to believe Georgia and GDC fail to protect incarcerated people from violence and from sexual violence in violation of the Eighth Amendment, recommending 82 remedial measures [#2637, #8088, #13281]; GDC publicly rejected the findings [#8090, #5762, #5282].

The federal model exists and was led in part by Georgia's own delegation: the Federal Prison Oversight Act, signed July 25, 2024, created risk-scored inspections of all 122 federal Bureau of Prisons facilities, public reporting, and an ombudsman, and passed with endorsements from FAMM, the ACLU, Americans for Prosperity, and CPAC [#4663, #8092, #8093, #7986]. It covers only federal facilities, not Georgia state prisons [#8092]. Evidence quality on oversight effectiveness remains thin — most documented outcomes are the oversight body's own attribution or secondary characterization by advocacy organizations, with no randomized or quasi-experimental studies establishing causal impact on deaths or violence [#8068].

Parole, Sentencing, and the Second-Look Proposals

Parole is where Georgia's sentencing policy is actually made, and the numbers describe a system that has quietly stopped releasing people. Parole grant rates collapsed from 70% in 1993 to 4.5% for people serving life sentences in FY2024 [#3937]. Grants fell 42% over five years, from 9,455 of 24,738 cases considered (38%) in 2019 to 5,443 of 19,328 (28%) in 2024 [#3316, #3317]. The Board releases 34% fewer people since the pandemic, with 44% fewer hearings [#2763]. Average time served rose 27%, from 3.94 years in 2014 to 5.00 years in 2023; for people with 10–15 year sentences, the increase was 45%, from 4.67 to 6.77 years, and a COVID-era spike from 4.45 years (2019) to 5.55 years (2021) never returned to baseline [#2719]. GPS characterizes this as "shadow sentencing" — the Board effectively adding time to judicial sentences without formal proceedings [#2739]. The Board holds no hearings and provides no written explanations for denials [#5779], and it will reconsider a life denial at least once every eight years at its own discretion [#2693].

SB 25, the 2025–2026 Parole Transparency Act, died in committee [#5772]. It remained pending through the $600 million spending package and was not addressed by it [#3898]. GPS proposes passing SB 25 with presumptive release language to expand parole review and restore rates toward historical norms, noting that even a 15–20% parole rate for lifers — against the current 4.5% — would release thousands [#3959]. Broader decarceration recommendations converge on expanded parole eligibility, sentencing reform and alternatives to incarceration, elimination of cash bail, review of life and long-term sentences, and investment in community-based supervision, a set endorsed by researchers, advocates, and some corrections professionals [#1440, #1363].

The fiscal case for parole reform is large and repeatedly modeled. Presumptive parole for prisoners 55 and older with automatic review could release 2,000–3,000 people and save $120 million to $140 million per year at $60,000 to $70,000 per person [#3942, #3943]. Three-scenario modeling for 2026 estimated $66.3 million to $99.4 million per year for 1,000–1,500 people aged 65+ with 20+ years served, $132.6 million to $198.9 million for 2,000–3,000 aged 60+ with 15+ years, and $198.9 million to $331.5 million for 3,000–5,000 aged 55+ with 10+ years [#5767]. Releasing 10,000 people — a 20% reduction at an average of $31,612 per person per year — would yield $316 million in annual savings [#3948], and if releases skew elderly, 5,000 at $60,000 to $70,000 each would produce $300 million to $350 million annually [#3949]. GPS also proposes second-look sentencing with judicial review after 15 years, applied retroactively, per Model Penal Code recommendation [#3961]. The Sentencing Project's parallel recommendations are more aggressive: abolish life without parole [#7810], cap imprisonment at 20 years for adults and 15 for youth and emerging adults [#7811], and institute an automatic second-look review within 10 years with a rebuttable presumption in favor of resentencing [#7812].

Georgia already holds unused authority that the legislature has never converted into a functioning program. The Georgia Constitution grants the Board of Pardons and Paroles authority to parole anyone aged 62 or older, and O.C.G.A. § 42-9-43(c) allows parole for "any aged or disabled persons" — but no published criteria, process, or statistics exist for this power [#5738]. When FAMM requested data on parole due to disability or advanced age in August 2021, the Board responded that it had "no documents responsive" [#5739]. FAMM's October 2022 report card gave Georgia failing grades on both mechanisms, calling medical reprieve criteria "unnecessarily and cruelly strict" [#5740]. Twenty-three states plus DC have elderly or geriatric parole statutes; Georgia is not among them in practice [#5756]. Georgia's medical reprieve standard under O.C.G.A. § 42-9-43(b) is among the most restrictive nationally, requiring a person to be "entirely incapacitated" by a progressively debilitating terminal illness with expected death within 12 months, needing assistance with two or more daily life functions or completely immobile, and at extremely low risk of physical threat [#5733]. The process is written-record only, with no hearings and a majority Board vote [#5734]. Post-release conditions include 24/7 house arrest, with return to prison ordered if the person's condition improves — a perverse incentive against medical improvement [#5735]. A GDC Medical Reprieve Coordinator controls the gateway to consideration, a structural conflict of interest in which the department may recommend reprieve and the Board then deny it [#5736]. Notably, 1,224 medical reprieves were granted between 2001 and 2020, roughly 61 per year, including 41 in 2020 and 53 in FY2021 [#5737] — volume that sits uneasily alongside the failing grades on criteria and the Board's claim of no responsive documents on age-based release [#5740, #5739]. No compassionate or geriatric release legislation was introduced or passed in the 2026 Georgia session [#5773].

Comparator states show what the reform would look like. Maryland's HB 1123 (2025) established geriatric parole for people 65 and older who have served 20+ years and expanded medical parole [#5784]. Illinois's Joe Coleman Medical Release Act defines medical incapacitation to include dementia and any diagnosable condition preventing more than basic self-care, and under it 60% of applicants with legal counsel were granted release compared to 19% without [#8261, #8258]. Even so, the Illinois Prisoner Review Board denied 50 of 78 applications in 2022, and the Illinois Prison Project estimated one-third of all applications had been rejected since the law took effect [#8259, #8260]. Texas's Medically Recommended Intensive Supervision is limited to narrow categories and does not guarantee release even when medical criteria are met [#8266, #8267]. The design lesson from Virginia's mandatory autopsy statute and the Illinois counsel disparity is that mandates without funding, counsel access, and broad eligibility underperform — which is why Georgia's ask should specify broad age-based eligibility rather than stacked medical criteria, a counsel or navigator provision, mandatory reporting of application and approval counts, and dedicated funding [#8275]. The Prison Policy Initiative recommends that state prison authorities and oversight bodies establish and maximally use release mechanisms for people over 50, especially those who have served long sentences [#8276], and the Sentencing Project recommends revamping parole boards and the parole process to accelerate review [#7813].

The Fiscal Case for Reform — and What Georgia Actually Funds

The $634 million Georgia approved in 2025 is overwhelmingly operational. Analysis of the package found it does not fund population reduction (no parole expansion, geriatric release, or reclassification), parole reform, classification and housing overhaul, sexual safety and PREA compliance, evidence-based gang management, incarcerated people's direct needs, or independent oversight [#3889]. Governor Kemp's proposal explicitly omitted gang management reform; the AJC noted the recommendations "speak directly to some of the DOJ's concerns — particularly staffing and facility conditions — but not others, including sexual safety and the management of gang members" [#3704]. Guidehouse recommended and Kemp did not fund expanded retention incentives such as child and family care benefits and bonuses, structural gang management reform, meaningful population reduction strategies, and parole reform [#3890]. The result is spending overwhelmingly directed at operational fixes — staffing, repairs, technology — rather than the structural reforms both the DOJ and independent experts identified as preconditions for meaningful change [#3901]. The Southern Center for Human Rights put it bluntly: "Pouring more money into a system without implementing solutions that prioritize decarceration is merely putting a Band-Aid on the problem" [#3887]. Only 3 of the DOJ's 82 remedial measures address programming at all — substance abuse, graduated housing with programs, and programs for community return — with no mandates for education, vocational training, cognitive-behavioral programming, GED, or college [#5286].

Against that, the numbers on rehabilitation spending are stark. Prison education represents 0.11% of the corrections budget — $40 per person per year, or $0.11 per day, less than the cost of 45 ramen packets from commissary at $0.90 each [#5266]. Georgia ranks dead last among Southern states in per-inmate education spending at approximately $39 per year [#5285]; Alabama spends approximately $742 per person per year even under federal oversight, roughly 19 times Georgia's rate [#5297]. Education is not a standalone budget program inside GDC — it is buried in the "State Prisons" appropriation with no dedicated line item, visible only through increases of $1.2 million (AFY2025) and $805,000 (FY2026) for technical and vocational education and related equipment [#5207, #3537]. Georgia also prohibits incarcerated students from accessing state financial aid, a 1995 administrative regulation, not a statute [#5242, #4664].

The return on closing that gap is well documented. RAND's meta-analysis found correctional education participants are 43% less likely to recidivate, with employment outcomes 13 percentage points higher and a return of $4 to $5 per dollar invested in the first three years [#6146, #7375]. That figure was the empirical foundation for the restoration of Pell Grant access, which returned July 1, 2023, with programs expanding in 44 states — while Georgia closed programs instead [#7377, #5267]. Providing postsecondary education to incarcerated people could cut state prison spending by up to $365 million annually [#4670]. Reducing Georgia's reconviction rate by 10 percentage points would mean roughly 1,200 fewer reconvictions per year and approximately $40 million per year in avoided incarceration costs — more than fifteen times GDC's current annual rehabilitation programming spending [#6145, #5235]. If Georgia matched roughly 2% of its corrections budget for education, the approximate share Texas and Florida allocate, that would equal about $30 million per year, roughly fifteen times current per-capita levels and still less than what GDC spends on private prison contracts [#6150]. GPS's specific asks are to raise vocational funding from $172,000 to at least $15 million — 1% of the GDC budget — with a goal of 5% within three years [#2174], and to expand transitional center capacity from 2,344 beds to at least 7,000, serving roughly 50% of annual releases [#2173].

The wrongful conviction ledger turns the same argument. There are 51 known Georgia exonerees with an average of 12 years served, representing $19.3 million in wasted incarceration costs at $31,613 per person per year [#4322]. The post-conviction reform package costing $5.25 million to $15.5 million annually could address $59 million to $172 million per year in wrongful incarceration waste depending on the actual wrongful conviction rate, which researchers place between 4% and 11.6% [#4352]. The Compensation Act's $75,000-per-year rate creates an estimated $46 million liability for existing exonerees — an incentive for the state to prevent wrongful convictions rather than pay for them afterwards [#4522, #4355].

The broader fee-and-debt landscape offers the largest accounting gains. Eight reforms across six states lifted $2.6 billion in outstanding fine and fee debt [#8232]; reforms waived $431 million in driver's license reinstatement fees and prevented $34 million in new ones annually [#8234, #8235]. Discharging one-time debt often comes at no revenue loss to governments, because the debt was unlikely to be collected in the first place [#8233]. On healthcare, Section 205 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 requires states to suspend rather than terminate Medicaid eligibility during incarceration effective January 1, 2026 [#2134, #5727], and properly expanded Section 1115 waivers could shift an estimated $4.7 billion per year nationally from state corrections to federal healthcare programs [#5728]. California's reentry demonstration under Section 1115 took effect in October 2024 [#5783].

The Extraction Economy: Commissary, Communications, and Fee Reform

Georgia's commissary and communications systems are the most concrete targets in the reform agenda because the money is measurable and the fixes are regulatory rather than constitutional. An investigation into commissary pricing recommends maximum markups of 10–15% over retail for essential healthcare items such as pain relievers, feminine hygiene products, and first aid [#474]; 20–25% over retail for basic hygiene and dignity items such as soap, toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo, and deodorant [#475]; and 30–35% over true wholesale for food staples including protein sources and meal components [#476]. It further recommends that minimal soap, toothbrush, and toothpaste be provided free in adequate quantities, with commissary offering upgraded brands instead [#483]; that over-the-counter pain relievers be available at clinic-dispensed levels for documented need [#484]; that excess commissary revenue be required by law to fund educational programs, re-entry services, victim restitution, or inmate welfare funds, with a prohibition on using commissary profits for general correctional operations [#486]; that promotional samples and travel-sized products intended as free giveaways be banned from sale [#487]; that comparison charts showing commissary prices versus Walmart retail and separate vendor costs and institutional markups be posted in housing units [#488]; that whistleblower protections cover staff or vendors reporting pricing irregularities [#489]; and that an oversight board including independent auditors, inmate family advocates, and procurement experts be established [#485]. The structural finding behind the recommendations is that the state appears locked into an exclusive vendor arrangement that costs taxpayers and inmate families millions in unnecessary markups rather than competitive procurement [#493]. Only five states — California, Kentucky, Maryland, Nevada, and Washington — require prisons to post welfare fund audits publicly within view of the incarcerated population; Georgia is not among them [#8250]. Commission-based contracts create an incentive for officials to approve higher prices, since percentage kickbacks increase facility revenue, and the resulting Inmate Welfare Funds operate as shadow budgets free from legislative appropriation oversight [#934, #935, #1002]. San Francisco eliminated commissary markups; the loss of approximately $500,000 in annual revenue was 0.17% of the Sheriff's budget and the impact was described as "profound" [#984]. Dane County, Wisconsin banned telecom commissions worth about $1 million per year, then negotiated a $476,000 "administrative fee" instead — illustrating how companies find loopholes around commission bans [#989].

On communications, the Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act of 2022 gave the FCC authority to regulate both phone and video rates [#944, #1695]. In July 2024 the FCC capped phone rates at $0.06 per minute for prisons and large jails and $0.07 for medium jails, imposed first-ever video caps of $0.11 to $0.25 per minute, banned site commissions, and banned ancillary fees [#945]. In 2025, under a new Republican majority, the Commission suspended the 2024 rules and approved higher interim caps — $0.10 per minute in large prisons, up to $0.18 in small jails, plus a $0.02 per minute facility fee — with Commissioner Anna Gomez stating the Commission was "shielding a broken system that inflates costs and rewards kickbacks to correctional facilities at the expense of incarcerated individuals and their loved ones" [#946, #947]. Bianca Tylek of Worth Rises said the Commission "bent to the will of the industry that has spent decades exploiting the basic human need of incarcerated people and their families" [#948]. Georgia has taken no legislative action to provide free calls or further reduce rates despite ranking third nationally in kickback revenue; no bills have advanced in the General Assembly [#1762]. The Georgia–Securus contract specifies a commission rate of 59.6% of gross revenue paid to GDC, among the highest in the nation against a national average of roughly 43% [#5393]. At least nine states prohibit commission-based prison telecom contracts — California, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, and South Carolina [#949] — and California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Colorado have enacted laws requiring free communications in state prisons and/or jails [#950, #1793]. New York made calls free as of August 1, 2025, the first state to do so administratively without legislation, at an estimated annual cost of $9 million [#1757]. Missouri capped rates at $0.12 per minute by statute in August 2025 [#1760]. Companies have adapted by bundling regulated phone service with unregulated messaging, tablet features, and games to evade rate caps [#995, #1003].

The most developed single proposal in GPS's policy portfolio is the monitor-not-block model. O.C.G.A. 42-5-18 prohibits items "without the authorization of the warden or superintendent or his or her designee" — it does not absolutely prohibit phones, it prohibits unauthorized phones, and wardens already hold statutory authority to authorize telecommunications devices [#5453]. All 13 Georgia Transitional Centers, with roughly 2,344 residents, have allowed personal cell phones since July 1, 2016, with staff permitted to search at any time under a signed waiver and records maintained of phone numbers, SIM cards, and carriers [#5443]. GDC tried restricting those phones in May 2022 and reversed under backlash [#5446]. Managed Access System hardware is already installed at 35 Georgia facilities [#5452], but MAS cannot see the content of calls or messages — it can only identify and block device signals [#5473] — and none of the documented major phone scam operations from Georgia prisons were stopped by MAS; all were discovered after the fact [#5436]. Contraband phones are replaced faster than they can be blocked through drone delivery and staff smuggling, and VOIP technology bypasses carrier-based blocking [#5442, #5441]. Tecore's iNAC system already passes pre-authorized device activity through to commercial networks, meaning the modification from blocking to monitoring is a configuration change rather than a redesign [#5451], and Georgia has already contracted with LEO Technologies for AI-based phone monitoring using speech-to-text, semantic analysis, and machine learning [#5469]. The costs are modest: monitored access runs approximately $583 to $646 per inmate per year against a current blocking cost of $443 to $556, a premium of $90 to $100 per inmate per year [#5457, #5458, #5459]. The estimated marginal system cost is $5 million to $7 million [#5475]. If monitored access produced even a 5% recidivism reduction — family contact is associated with 13–25% reductions — the savings would be $73.5 million per year, dwarfing the marginal cost [#5460, #5461]. GPS's summary argument: "For an additional $90 per inmate per year — less than the price of a single contraband phone — Georgia can switch from a system that produces no intelligence and record violence, to a system that catches scammers, intercepts hit orders, prevents suicides, maintains families, and saves $73 million in reduced recidivism" [#5472]. The proposed strategy is three-phase — single-facility pilot, data publication, system-wide expansion — and requires no statutory amendment, only a Commissioner's policy directive and warden authorizations [#5471, #5454].

The counter-position is well funded and institutionally powerful. Attorney General Chris Carr, now a 2026 candidate for governor, leads a 23-state coalition advocating for FCC authority to jam cell phones in prisons, following a 22-state coalition in January 2023 and a June 2024 letter to the FCC [#5516, #5513, #5514]. The FCC adopted a jamming proposal on September 30, 2025 [#5515]. Carr has said: "Prisoners with contraband cell phones are ordering murders" [#5455], and Commissioner Oliver has said "A contraband cell phone can be used as a deadly weapon" [#5456]. The 2024 Senate Study Committee recommended advocating for federal jamming approval [#2976, #5534]. If jamming is approved, it would eliminate the need for private MAS vendors entirely — and potentially render the whole vendor ecosystem obsolete [#5414, #5430]. Advocates counter that jamming addresses none of the operational failures: "Cell phone jammers don't stop violence. They don't protect officers. They don't respond to riots, stabbings, or medical emergencies. Staff does. You can't jam your way out of a staffing crisis" [#5365].

Pay-to-stay is the third extraction front. Forty-eight of the 50 states and Washington, D.C. allow at least one category of pay-to-stay fees, and 26 states explicitly allow both room-and-board and medical fees for adults and youth [#8226, #8227]. Only California and Illinois have repealed fees for all categories in state correctional facilities [#8228, #957]. Georgia Code § 42-5-59 (2022) mandates that "an amount determined to be the cost of the inmate's keep and confinement shall be deducted from the earnings of each inmate, and such amount shall be deposited in the treasury of the department" [#8229]. Under the federal PIECP program, up to 80% of wages can be deducted for taxes, room and board, victim restitution, and family support [#3395]. Illinois and New Hampshire repealed pay-to-stay laws in 2019, Missouri repealed in 2025, and Connecticut reformed its laws in 2022 [#997].

The 2026 Election, ALEC, and the Advocacy Map

The 2026 Georgia elections have become the principal advocacy window because the legislature is not moving. The gubernatorial race is identified as the critical opening for pressing candidates on solitary confinement reform [#1546], statewide conviction integrity reform [#2324], and habeas corpus reform [#2365], with arguments framed around fiscal responsibility, public safety, constitutional fidelity, and federal exposure from the 2024 DOJ investigation. The record so far is thin: only 3 of more than 30 statewide candidates have detailed prison reform positions — Jake Olinger (R-Gov), Josh McLaurin (D-Lt. Gov), and Tanya Miller (D-AG) [#3962]. The four leading Republican gubernatorial candidates — Jones, Jackson, Carr, and Raffensperger — have collectively offered zero positions on prison conditions, parole reform, GDC oversight, or the DOJ investigation, despite $700 million in spending with worsening outcomes [#3963]. The Democratic gubernatorial frontrunner, Keisha Lance Bottoms, has relevant experience — as Atlanta mayor she banned cash bonds for city ordinance violations [#3977] — but has not prioritized prison reform in her 2026 campaign, with no specific positions on conditions, parole, oversight, sentencing, or the DOJ findings [#3964].

Olinger carries the most detailed reform platform of any candidate: appointing Parole Board members who will increase grant rates, including a formerly incarcerated person; requiring written denial explanations; automatic review for old-law sentences; mandatory timelines; an Independent Oversight Office with mandatory quarterly public reports and unannounced inspections; modifying or repealing Truth in Sentencing; reducing mandatory minimums; expanding earned time credits; reclassifying low-level felonies; capping commissary prices; and a minimum wage for prison workers [#3974]. He opposed the $600 million spending package, saying: "Georgia doesn't have a 'prison space problem.' Georgia has a failed policy problem" [#3975, #3976]. Since the Governor appoints the entire Parole Board, only Olinger has committed to appointing members who will increase grant rates [#3991]. McLaurin has the most documented legislative record on prison reform of any statewide candidate: co-chair of the 2021 House Democratic Caucus committee investigating the prison crisis, sponsor of voting rights restoration legislation affecting approximately 200,000 people, a NO vote on SB 63 (cash bail expansion), one of only three senators opposing SB 79 (fentanyl sentences), a regular attendee of Parole Board meetings, an opponent of new prison construction, and an advocate of increased parole as an "evidence-based safety valve" [#3984, #3986]. He has said the level of human rights abuses is "intolerable" and that "locking more people up for longer sentences is taking away their ability piece by piece to participate in society" [#3987, #3988]. Miller is the most reform-oriented Attorney General candidate: a former Fulton County homicide prosecutor now in civil rights practice, pledging to "decrease the amount of people entangled in our criminal justice system," committed to healthcare for incarcerated people and parolees, and standing "firm against efforts that would criminalize lower income, young, and Black Georgians" [#3989, #3990, #3999]. She is the only AG candidate who has addressed the fact that the next Attorney General will negotiate any DOJ consent decree [#3992, #3973]. On the Republican side, Brenda Nelson-Porter is the only Lt. Governor candidate with prison reform positions: that prison food is "insufficient," Senate study committees on nutrition and medical care, more accessible parole for trade program participants, a "#ParoleeConnect" rideshare program, and earned time credits for literacy programs [#3983, #3996]. Burt Jones has an exclusively punitive record — SB 44 (2023 gang mandatory minimums), SB 63 (2024 cash bail expansion), fentanyl mandatory minimum increases, and SB 185 (2025 transgender prisoner care ban) — and no positions on conditions, parole, oversight, rehabilitation, staffing, or the DOJ findings [#3965]. Carr's stated goal is to make Georgia the "toughest state in the nation on crime" [#3971]. Blake Tillery led the budget process for the $600 million prison spending package and authored SB 39 (transgender prisoner care ban) [#3981]. Rick Jackson, a healthcare executive with $50 million in self-funding who entered the race in February 2026, has offered no positions on prison healthcare or conditions despite the $432 million GDC health budget [#3967].

Underneath the campaign surface, Georgia's legislative agenda is shaped by a national model-bill infrastructure that is largely exempt from the state's lobbying disclosure regime. ALEC's influence is documented: Georgia's HB 87 (2011), the Illegal Immigration Reform and Enforcement Act, was explicitly modeled on Arizona's SB 1070 [#8305]. The "Copy, Paste, Legislate" investigation found at least 10,000 copycat bills introduced in state legislatures, of which more than 2,100 were enacted [#8284, #8285]. The GEO Group was a member of ALEC's crime task force during the 1990s truth-in-sentencing and three-strikes push [#8313]. The American Bail Coalition is an executive member of ALEC's Public Safety and Elections Task Force and its representative is listed as ALEC's 2026 National Chairman [#8314]. That task force was disbanded in April 2012 following the Trayvon Martin and "Stand Your Ground" boycott [#8303, #8315]. Rep. John Carson sits on ALEC's national Board of Directors, confirmed by ALEC's May 2024 board roster and IRS Form 990 filings for FY2023 and FY2024 [#8291]. No record was found of ALEC registering as a lobbyist principal in Georgia; its 501(c)(3) educational posture is the stated basis for not doing so [#8301], which means ALEC-funded scholarship travel for legislators may fall outside lobbyist-expenditure reporting entirely [#8300]. Georgia law compounds the gap: since a 2013 ethics law public officers may not accept lobbyist expenditures subject to enumerated exceptions [#8297], but legislator annual financial disclosures do not require disclosure of gifts and do not include client names [#8298], and the statutory definition of "gift" applies only to transfers over $100 [#8299]. Georgia's legislature is also exempt from public records law, making it a "hard-shield" state in which ALEC-related records requests have failed [#8339].

The organized advocacy sector has converged on a consistent set of positions. The Southern Center for Human Rights has flagged the burden of communications fees on Georgia families, and its 2026 priorities include conditions of confinement and parole expansion [#1776]. The Prison Policy Initiative advocates repealing the PLRA outright [#7978, #7988], arguing that understaffing is "an untreatable symptom of mass incarceration — not a recruitment problem" [#1421] and that prison healthcare should be removed from the corrections bureaucracy, moved toward public provision, and unshackled from the Medicaid Inmate Exclusion Policy [#545]. The ACLU and MacArthur Justice Center advocate softening § 1997e through a good-faith or substantial-compliance exhaustion standard, elimination of the physical-injury bar, and repeal of attorney's fee caps [#7988]. The American Bar Association, through Margo Schlanger's congressional testimony, has urged repealing the PLRA's physical injury requirement and requiring grievance systems to meet minimum federal standards before exhaustion is enforced [#6561]. Worth Rises blocked a proposed Securus/ICSolutions merger in 2018 and pressured the Pennsylvania State Employees' Retirement System to decline a $150 million investment in Securus in 2023 [#1773, #1774]. The 2024 Senate Study Committee's final report produced reform recommendations whose implementation tracking provides an accountability framework [#2175], and the Federal Prison Oversight Act's bipartisan coalition — FAMM, the ACLU, Americans for Prosperity, and CPAC — is repeatedly cited as the template for what a Georgia bill could assemble [#8093]. One caution runs through all of it: Nordic and Western European outcomes reflect much shorter sentences, far smaller populations, and stronger social-welfare baselines, establishing that measurable alternatives exist without suggesting they transplant one-to-one to Georgia [#7678].