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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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“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...
Georgia Keeps Buying Cell Locks. Its Prisons Keep Using Padlocks.
State fire inspectors found padlocks and slide bolts on cell doors in four housing units at Washington State Prison in September. Broken locks, the warden said. Georgia has been buying new ones for more than a decade, and this year it set aside another $84,596,895...
Forgetting Is Not Murder
A Florida nanny forgot a sleeping baby in her car, and the State called it murder until an appeals court said no. Georgia charges grieving parents the same way. One Lawrenceville mother sat in jail for six weeks after losing her son. Forgetting is a tragedy, not a murder...
Who Builds the File Five Members Vote On? Georgia’s Parole Guidelines and the One Unit That Checks Them
Five Board members vote on Georgia parole cases, but staff compute the crime severity level, the risk score and the case summary. One internal unit audits that work and publishes no results. Here is the design, in the Board's own words...
“He’s on Tier”: What Georgia’s Prison Segregation System Is and How It Works
"He's on Tier" means a loved one is in Georgia's prison segregation system. Here's how Tier I, Tier II, the Special Management Unit and the STEP step-down work under GDC's own policies, how people get in and out, and the bed counts GDC gave GPS in October 2026...
“I Am Telling You What I Saw”: A Letter From Georgia’s Women’s Prisons
Rachelle Terry spent more than two years in Georgia's women's prisons. This September she wrote to lawmakers and the Department of Corrections about what she saw. Her letter is published here in full, alongside what the state's own records show for the two prisons that held her...
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