# 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.

**Published**: 2026-10-09
**Source**: https://gps.press/georgia-keeps-buying-cell-locks-its-prisons-keep-using-padlocks/
**Author**: Leo Alexander

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On September 24, Warden Veronica Stewart and management staff escorted two state fire inspectors into the housing units at [Washington State Prison](https://gps.press/facility/washington-state-prison/). Inside units F, G, H and I, the inspectors found padlocks and slide bolt latches on the cell doors. The warden gave them a reason for what they saw. According to the inspectors' report, the warden "advised this method was implemented because of broken mortise locks." [State Fire Marshal inspection report Washington State Prison September 24 2026 File 26-014544](https://gps.press/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/mcp-pathimport-e56b7dd13a70.pdf)

The door has a lock. The lock doesn't work. So the prison puts a bolt and a padlock on the outside. That sentence is the whole problem.

More than a decade of Georgia's money has gone into fixing those locks. In the amended budget this year, the General Assembly set aside $84,596,895 for a single line: "design and construction to replace locking controls, statewide." [HB 973 Amended FY2026 appropriations conference version line 371.8](https://www.legis.ga.gov/api/document/docs/default-source/house-budget-and-research-office-document-library/2026-fiscal-year/amended_fy_2026_bill_conference_%28hb_973%29.pdf?sfvrsn=3bbbbb96_2) The General Assembly approves the money. Governor Kemp signed it into law in March. GDC and GSFIC, the state's construction authority, spend it. Records kept by those agencies show the same promise made, bought and broken at one prison after another. The padlocks stayed on the doors.

## What the fire marshal found at Washington

Washington State Prison has five cell-house buildings. Four of them appear in the report by name, units F, G, H and I, and against those four the report lists one violation:

> "Padlocks are not permitted on housing unit doors or any other door located in the means of egress."

It points to how Georgia amended the Life Safety Code, NFPA 101, section 23.2.11.1.2.1, and flags the means of egress "Non-Compliant." An anonymous complaint to the State Fire Marshal's Office brought the inspection about. Whether inspectors got into the fifth building, the report doesn't say.

The report lists violations at "shall be corrected immediately" and sets a 30-day clock: the prison returns the form with each item initialed as corrected, or sends a plan of correction. "A follow-up inspection is scheduled to be conducted in approximately 30 Days." The next visit falls in late October.

Men at Washington had already described the deadbolts and D-rings on their doors to GPS, during the lockdowns. Now the padlocks on Washington's cell doors are in writing, put there by a state inspector.

## Thirteen years of new locks

The locks at Washington aren't new, and the fix the state keeps buying isn't either.

In February 2013, the Georgia Department of Corrections signed an emergency contract worth $1 million to replace the cell door locks at Hays State Prison. The work went to Cornerstone Detention Products of Alabama. GDC's request for that emergency money gave its reason: "Inmates at Hays State Prison have been able to defeat … the locks currently installed in the cell doors." [AJC via Corrections1 July 2013 Ga. state prison finds new issue with locks](https://www.corrections1.com/corrections/articles/ga-state-prison-finds-new-issue-with-locks-1RwhQqaYPts0XrUJ/) The record behind the request was already there. A state audit in September 2012 found 184 of 442 locks inspected at Hays had failed [AJC via Corrections1 on the 2012 Hays lock audit](https://www.corrections1.com/corrections/articles/ga-state-prison-finds-new-issue-with-locks-1RwhQqaYPts0XrUJ/). That same year, an internal audit found about 41 percent of inspected locks failing at Hays and at Valdosta State Prison [GPB and AP July 3 2013 Locks failing on high security cells](https://www.gpb.org/news/2013/07/03/locks-failing-on-high-security-cells). At Telfair State Prison, the audits showed 81 of 200 new locks had already been replaced because of "inmate damage and/or tampering." [AJC via Corrections1 on the Telfair lock audit](https://www.corrections1.com/corrections/articles/ga-state-prison-finds-new-issue-with-locks-1RwhQqaYPts0XrUJ/) And in 2011, a report from the state inspector general had already questioned whether GDC's locking systems "represent a cost-effective and efficient use of current technologies." [AJC via Corrections1, Ga. state prison finds new issue with locks](https://www.corrections1.com/corrections/articles/ga-state-prison-finds-new-issue-with-locks-1RwhQqaYPts0XrUJ/)

Two years on, the Georgia State Financing and Investment Commission put out a call to contractors. GSFIC buys prison construction for GDC, and it wanted them pre-qualified for what it called GDC's "Programmable Locking Control System Projects.". GDC, the commission said, "intends to accomplish the replacement or renovation of existing locking control systems in a number of its state prisons beginning in this fiscal year 2015." [Georgia Procurement Registry GSFIC event GDC-FY2015-2017](https://ssl.doas.state.ga.us/gpr/eventDetails?eSourceNumber=GDC-FY2015-2017&sourceSystemType=doas)

The state's own budget and procurement records show what followed:

- **FY2014:** GDC's annual report said new computer-based locking control systems "will be installed at select facilities at a cost of $1,300,000 per project." [GDC FY2014 Annual Report](https://gdc.georgia.gov/document/gdc-annual-fiscal-report/gdc-annual-fiscal-report-2014/download)
- **FY2016 and FY2018:** lawmakers enacted bonds of $5,510,000 and $7,650,000 to "Fund locking controls and perimeter detection improvements, statewide." [FY2016 appropriations act, HB 76, line 355.364](https://opb.georgia.gov/document/appropriations-bills/hb-76-2016-appropriations-bill/download) [FY2018 appropriations act, HB 44, line 348.374](https://opb.georgia.gov/document/appropriations-bills/hb-44-fy-2018-appropriations-bill/download) The Governor also recommended $2,565,000 for FY2017.
- **FY2018:** a $4,095,000 bond to "Fund replacement of inmate cell doors at Georgia State Prison, Reidsville," after a $3,895,000 recommendation for the same doors the year before. [FY2018 appropriations act, HB 44, line 348.373](https://opb.georgia.gov/document/appropriations-bills/hb-44-fy-2018-appropriations-bill/download) GSFIC bid out new locking controls and sliding doors there in 2017. Six years later the budget recorded "the closure of Georgia State Prison." [Governor's Budget Report AFY2023 and FY2024](https://opb.georgia.gov/document/governors-budget-reports/afy-2023-and-fy-2024-governors-budget-report/download)
- **FY2020:** a $2,500,000 bond for repairs to CCTV, fire alarms, locking control systems and other systems, statewide. [FY2020 appropriations act, HB 31, line 355.374](https://www.legis.ga.gov/api/document/docs/default-source/house-budget-and-research-office-document-library/2020_fiscalyear/fy_2020_bill_conf_cmte.pdf?sfvrsn=eda5ba25_2)
- **2014 to 2021:** GSFIC put out locking-control design or construction work for Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison, Telfair, Augusta State Medical Prison, Georgia State Prison, Macon, Phillips, Calhoun and Johnson. For most of those jobs, the registry lists the award documents as archived and not available.
- **AFY2025:** lawmakers enacted $34,262,515 "for design and construction to replace locking control systems at various facilities," and $248,062 for a "tiger team" to help GDC's own locking team repair "facility locks, locking controls, and security electronics." [AFY2025 appropriations act, HB 67, lines 969 and 971](https://opb.georgia.gov/document/appropriations-bills/hb-67-afy-2025-appropriations-bill/download)
- **FY2026:** $1,022,013 more for the tiger team. [FY2026 appropriations act, HB 68, line 120.11](https://www.legis.ga.gov/api/document/docs/default-source/senate-budget-office-document-library/appropriations/2026/general/cc-bill_hb-68-fy26g_final.pdf?sfvrsn=f03de74b_2)
- **AFY2026:** $84,596,895 enacted to "replace locking controls, statewide." The Governor had asked for $89,596,895.
- **Next:** in September 2025 GSFIC sought designers for new locking control systems at six more prisons: Dodge, Wilcox, Pulaski, Baldwin, Valdosta and Rogers. "The preliminary Stated Cost Limitation (SCL) or construction cost of each Project Site is estimated at $8,000,000 to $12,000,000 per site." [Georgia Procurement Registry GSFIC GDC-171S Locking Control Systems](https://ssl.doas.state.ga.us/gpr/eventDetails?eSourceNumber=PE-40900-RFQC-2026-000000167&sourceSystemType=gpr20)

The money isn't all the same kind. Bonds borrow. The 2016 and 2018 bonds paid for perimeter detection as well, and the 2020 bond covered several systems, so added together they don't give one honest number. The straight appropriations do. Across the last two budgets, lawmakers have enacted $120,129,485 for lock design, construction and repair crews since 2025, counting the AFY2025, FY2026 and AFY2026 lines above.

The locks don't hold. That's what a federal PREA auditor found at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison, writing that "None of the cell locks in two of your large housing units A & B are working," and that the facility "utilized chains with pad locks to secure the cells." in the segregation unit, H3. GDC held a contract at the time with U.S. Security Systems to swap out the sliding doors and locking controls in those units, work scheduled to run into November 2017. [PREA audit, Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison, auditor's summary report](https://gdc.georgia.gov/document/prea-audit-location-report/prea-gdcp-audit-cycle-1/download) And a man held there today says the locks the prison uses now get worked around, too.

The commissioner of GDC doesn't dispute it. WSB-TV asked Tyrone Oliver, "Can inmates beat your locks you've got right now?" and the commissioner answered, "Yes." [WSB-TV, $600M+ earmarked to improve GA's prison system is part of Gov. Kemp's proposed budget](https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/atlanta/600m-earmarked-improve-gas-prison-system-is-part-gov-kemps-proposed-budget/I2CVVWI4YNCVHIVMJMYERCG7PU/)

## Dooly: $8.8 million, and the deadbolts stayed

The bid papers for the lock job at [Dooly State Prison](https://gps.press/facility/dooly-state-prison/) are still public, and the job isn't old. GSFIC opened bids on May 31, 2023. Cornerstone Detention Products, the same company Georgia hired for the Hays emergency ten years earlier, bid $8,813,000.00 for "Locking Control System and Lock Replacement/Renovations." and won. Airteq appears on the bid tab as the detention hardware manufacturer. [GSFIC bid tab GDC-23-DOOLY-SP-006 Dooly State Prison Locking Control System](https://ssl.doas.state.ga.us/gpr/downloadAttachment?attachmentId=304693&sourceSystemType=doas) The registry marks the job complete. It gives no date for when the work finished.

Men held at Dooly tell GPS the installation took about 18 months. They call the new locks the red-light, green-light system. The maker's plate on those locks reads WLS, they say: Willoughby Locking Systems, a lock brand of Willoughby Industries of Indianapolis. ((Willoughby Industries, "Introducing Willoughby Locking Systems," [https://willoughby-ind.com/introducing-willoughby-locking-systems/](https://willoughby-ind.com/introducing-willoughby-locking-systems/) )) That isn't the maker named in the 2023 bid papers. The papers don't say whether the hardware changed after the award. The men describe a lock that closes the door, and a button on the inside that won't let a man out. A man who steps out or pulls his door shut can wait for hours for an officer to come and open it, or go looking for one. And within about a month, they say, men had worked out several ways to defeat the new system.

At Dooly, the men say the old deadbolts haven't gone anywhere. They're still in use, side by side with the new electric locks.

Ten cell-house dorms stand at Dooly, and eight open dorms have no cell doors at all. Four of the open dorms sit in D building. The State Fire Marshal's certificate of occupancy for "#003 D Housing,", issued in 1996, sets its "Occupant Load Limitation" at 216. [State Fire Marshal certificate of occupancy record Dooly State Prison D Housing CO 33424S](https://gps.press/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/mcp-pathimport-5603ef39f7f0.pdf) Men held there put each of those four dorms at about 80 men. That comes to about 320 men in a building certified for 216, nearly half again its limit. Not every man at Dooly lives behind a cell door.

The certificate "shall run for the life of the building, provided the internal or external features of the building are not materially altered, the type of occupancy remains unchanged." GPS then asked the fire marshal's office whether any plan review, amended certificate, re-rating or variance for Dooly had come later. The office answered: "No records were found related to items 2-4."

## What men at other prisons describe

Dooly isn't the only one. GPS put the question about the red-light, green-light system to men at other prisons. A man at [Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison](https://gps.press/facility/georgia-diagnostic-and-classification-prison/) answered: "We use that system." How long it took men there to get around it, he didn't know, but as he remembers it, they did. At [Macon State Prison](https://gps.press/facility/macon-state-prison/), a man said the prison has the same locks, and that men have beaten them. The speed, he said, depends on the men in the dorm, and on whether a dorm is willing to put up with shakedowns and losing its store privileges. Both prisons are on GSFIC's list of locking-control projects. [Georgia Procurement Registry, GSFIC GDC-15-044-GDC-SP "Locking Control and Slider Renovations" at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison](https://ssl.doas.state.ga.us/gpr/eventDetails?eSourceNumber=1440900GDC-15-044-GDC-SP&sourceSystemType=doas)

At [Rutledge State Prison](https://gps.press/facility/rutledge-state-prison/), the cell doors don't lock at all right now, according to a man there. Deadbolts hold the dorm doors shut. To reach any courtyard, you go through large gates opened with big keys. For years, he said, men at that prison have had no keys to their own cells. A crew came through to refit the cell doors with locks, each with a button inside: a man presses it, and an officer lets him out. The men at Dooly describe the same design.

At [Hancock State Prison](https://gps.press/facility/hancock-state-prison/), the system went in around 2017 or 2018, men there say, and it held until the staff shortage. Then men started breaking it during the Covid years. One of them said officers quit letting them out at a regular time each day, and they spent days behind the door on quarantine, seeing officers only at chow call and pill call. "We got fed up, and there were no officers to stop us." The same system reached [Smith State Prison](https://gps.press/facility/smith-state-prison/) in 2020, according to another man. GPS has searched the procurement records. Neither job shows up by name.

## Keys never went away

The electronic systems were meant to take the place of the key ring. GDC's own purchase records show the key ring stayed.

In June 2023, GDC bought detention-rated deadbolts from Craftmaster Hardware, "Paracentric keyed," on a fixed contract worth $63,028. A bidder wanted to know if the purchase was one-time. GDC's answer was "Yes." The keys, it said, would be "cut for 8 different areas with 10 keys each." [Georgia Procurement Registry 46700-GDC0001054 Detention Deadbolt Lock and Keys](https://ssl.doas.state.ga.us/gpr/eventDetails?eSourceNumber=46700-GDC0001054&sourceSystemType=ps)

This year GSFIC is hiring a "Tiger Team" of "eight or more skilled lock and controls specialists" for full weeks of lock and locking-control repairs at prisons across the state, all of it under GDC supervision. Welding and metal fabrication are on the job list, along with "Ability to duplicate keys, re-key cylinders/tumbler locks." [Georgia Procurement Registry GSFIC GDC-174 Lock and Control Specialists](https://ssl.doas.state.ga.us/gpr/eventDetails?eSourceNumber=PE-40900-RFP-2026-000000197&sourceSystemType=gpr20)

The keys have their own set of rules. Under the fire code, keys to the locked doors along a prison's escape routes have to be "individually identified by both touch and sight,", and staff have to begin releasing locks "within 2 minutes of alarm." [NFPA 101, 2024 edition, sections 23.7.5 and 23.7.1.1(2), as posted by Public.Resource.Org](https://archive.org/details/pub.cfr.nfpa.101.2024) GDC's fire-safety policy states the same requirement: "Keys for manual locks to means of egress shall be maintained in working order and will be identifiable by sight and touch," and "All monthly tests of emergency locks and keys shall be documented." [GDC SOP 511.03 Departmental Fire and Life Safety Program, section B](https://gps.press/sop-data/511.03/)

The rule on paper and the rule in the cell are two different things. GPS has heard the same account from prison after prison: an officer without keys on his person, or holding a ring he can't match to the lock, and a man waiting on the other side of a door that won't open. At Ware State Prison the State Fire Marshal's inspectors didn't have to take anyone's word for it. Their August report records 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." The September follow-up repeats it word for word. [State Fire Marshal follow-up inspection report, Ware State Prison, File No. 26-009306, August 2026](https://gps.press/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/mcp-pathimport-9931191baef0.pdf) And DOJ reported that a 2023 GDC facility audit "found that staff failed to submit maintenance requests for broken keys." [DOJ Findings Report October 1 2024](https://www.justice.gov/d9/2024-09/findings_report_-_investigation_of_georgia_prisons.pdf)

A man held at Central State Prison told GPS that two housing buildings there still run on keyed cell locks, and that the men inside keep keys to their own doors. Officers are meant to carry a master key that opens every cell. Few of those keys remain, he said, and most officers don't have one, which means a man can lock himself in and staff can't reach him. Locks that broke during the Covid years were never all repaired. He puts the share of cell locks still working in those two buildings at a third to a half, and where a key is gone, the lock itself has been pulled out. On the prison's fire exit doors sit barrel bolts, which can take a padlock. Georgia law makes it unlawful to lock an exit door "unless such provisions are allowed by this chapter or by any rule, regulation, or order issued by the Commissioner," [O.C.G.A. § 25-2-37(a)](https://gps.press/ocga/25-2-37/) and the fire code permits a prison to secure doors leading outside with key locks, provided "the keys to unlock such doors shall be maintained and available at the facility at all times, and the locks shall be operable from the outside." [NFPA 101, 2024 edition, section 23.2.11.1.7, as posted by Public.Resource.Org](https://archive.org/details/pub.cfr.nfpa.101.2024) A barrel bolt isn't a key lock. At Ware, the fire marshal cited that same rule after finding "barrel bolts on all fire exit doors on housing buildings." [State Fire Marshal follow-up inspection report, Ware State Prison, File No. 26-009306, August 2026](https://gps.press/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/mcp-pathimport-9931191baef0.pdf)

The U.S. Department of Justice saw where this leads. Its findings, dated October 2024, reported that "door locks are inoperable or manipulable," A captain at one prison said men "pop the locks of their cells 'all the time.'" GDC told the investigators about a rolling "lock hardening project." DOJ wasn't persuaded it would hold:

> "Locks likely will remain an issue, even after being 'hardened' or replaced, because GDC does not have sufficient security staff to supervise incarcerated persons and prevent further damage to and manipulation of door locks." [DOJ Findings Report Investigation of Georgia Prisons October 1 2024 pages 14 35 and 37](https://www.justice.gov/d9/2024-09/findings_report_-_investigation_of_georgia_prisons.pdf)

In December 2025, WTOC reported, Commissioner Tyrone Oliver told lawmakers that swapping out the locks entirely was a job that could run for years. [WTOC December 2025 Lawmakers question whether 600M investment made Georgia prisons safer](https://www.wtoc.com/2025/12/02/lawmakers-question-whether-600m-investment-made-georgia-prisons-safer/)

## Two dangers on one door

A padlock on a cell door is a fire problem. Georgia's fire code requires that the locks in a prison be released within two minutes with the minimum staff on duty. A padlock has no release but its key. GPS laid that out in [Bolted In](https://gps.press/bolted-in-georgia-prisons-lock-the-fire-exits-and-the-states-own-inspectors-keep-finding-them-locked/). [NFPA 101 Life Safety Code 2024 Chapter 23 as adopted in Georgia](https://up.codes/viewer/georgia/nfpa-101-2024)

At night, the men describe a different failure: a lock that doesn't hold. DOJ found staff away from housing units for long stretches "and cell locks fail, allowing incarcerated persons to leave their cells and enter others' cells." In a case it cited at Augusta State Medical Prison in March 2023, a man "allegedly popped the lock of his cell, exited, entered the cell of another man, and raped him." [DOJ Findings Report October 1 2024 pages 60 and 61](https://www.justice.gov/d9/2024-09/findings_report_-_investigation_of_georgia_prisons.pdf)

At [Hancock State Prison](https://gps.press/facility/hancock-state-prison/), the account GPS received is of a man asleep in his own room, stabbed by a man known to carry a knife.

A cell door in most Georgia prisons won't lock from the inside, and once it's shut behind a man, he can't open it again. Often no officer is in the building to do it for him. So he sleeps where anyone can walk in. The state has set aside tens of millions of dollars for new locks. The question the record leaves is why a man can't secure his own door for the night.

Men have described these nights themselves. One account, written for Tell My Story, reads: "They padlocked you into a cell, but men still broke out at night and popped other locks off, sometimes to get into a cell where they wanted to kill someone." [Tell My Story The Flame](https://gps.press/the-flame/) A second account reads: "I've had to sleep with a knife in my hand at my side in case they came in while I was sleeping." [Tell My Story Magazines Wrapped Around My Chest](https://gps.press/magazines-wrapped-around-my-chest/)

The door fails in both directions. In a lockdown it's shut with a padlock, opened by hand, one door at a time. At night it doesn't keep anyone out.

## A key, and a night's sleep

Georgia's prisons ran on keys before the electronic systems arrived. Keys are still in use alongside them. GPS sees a simpler option there, one worth putting a price on: a sturdy keyed lock on every cell door, a key held by the man who lives in that cell so he can lock his own door when he sleeps, and a master key so staff can secure the doors during a lockdown.

Georgia's fire code doesn't forbid a keyed lock on a cell door. It sets a test. The state's rule on padlocks is plain: "Padlocks are not permitted on housing unit doors or any other door located in the means of egress." [Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. r. 120-3-3-.04, modification to NFPA 101 section 23.2.11.1.2.1](https://www.law.cornell.edu/regulations/georgia/Ga-Comp-R-Regs-R-120-3-3-.04) Bolts run into the same wall. The International Fire Code, the model code published by the International Code Council, says so outright: "Manually operated flush bolts or surface bolts are not permitted." Its exceptions reach a few inside doors that aren't needed to get out, and some paired doors in storage, business, factory and hospital buildings. A prison isn't among them. Georgia adopted that code, then swapped out most of its exit chapter for NFPA's Life Safety Code, which carries no such sentence. From the international code's exit chapter it kept one rule: "Security devices affecting means of egress shall be subject to approval of the fire code official." [International Fire Code 2018, sections 1010.1.9.5 and 1031.2.1, International Code Council](https://codes.iccsafe.org/content/IFC2018/chapter-10-means-of-egress) A bolt screwed onto a cell door is that kind of device. Keyed locks are a different matter. The Life Safety Code sorts prison housing into "use conditions." In the most restrictive, Use Condition V, the code itself expects "staff-controlled manual release at each door," which is a key in an officer's hand. Whatever the system, staff have to start releasing locks "within 2 minutes of alarm," and every key has to be "individually identified by both touch and sight." [NFPA 101, Life Safety Code, 2024 edition, sections 23.1.2.1.5, 23.7.1.1(2) and 23.7.5, as posted by Public.Resource.Org](https://archive.org/details/pub.cfr.nfpa.101.2024)

Use Condition IV sets a harder test, and that's the rating the fire marshal's certificates give Dooly's housing. In those buildings the code calls for release from a control point, done remotely. Keys are allowed to stand in only when "Not more than 10 locks need to be unlocked to relocate all occupants from one smoke compartment" and the job takes "not more than two separate keys." [NFPA 101, 2024 edition, section 23.2.11.1.8.2](https://archive.org/details/pub.cfr.nfpa.101.2024) A cell-house dorm holds far more than ten cell doors. So a building rated that way would still need a way to open the doors from a control point in a fire, with the keys sitting on top of it: one for the man inside, and a master for lockdowns.

The code says nothing about a man holding a key to his own door. What it requires is that staff can open every door, and open it fast.

What GPS is after is normalization, one piece of a wider push to change how prisons are run. The model is Norwegian, and that country's prison service says it without decoration: "The punishment is the restriction of liberty; no other rights have been removed by the sentencing court," and "life inside will resemble life outside as much as possible." [Norwegian Correctional Service, About the Norwegian Correctional Service](https://www.kriminalomsorgen.no/informasjon-paa-engelsk.536003.no.html) Correctional leaders in the U.S. have gone to look at it. Amend, at the University of California, San Francisco, has taken U.S. correctional staff and leaders to Norway and Germany. The Brennan Center joined two of those trips and wrote that Northern Europe's "dignity-first approach to incarceration offers inspiration and practical support for initiatives in the United States." [Brennan Center for Justice, Northern European Prisons Illustrate Focus on Dignity, April 16 2025](https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/northern-european-prisons-illustrate-focus-dignity) In American prisons, the Vera Institute and the MILPA Collective have opened nine housing units for young adults, and human dignity is the commitment they're built around. [Vera Institute of Justice, Restoring Promise](https://www.vera.org/restoring-promise) GPS has covered this ground before, in [Normalization: The Principle That Changes Everything](https://gps.press/normalization-the-principle-that-changes-everything/) and [Reopen the Doors](https://gps.press/reopen-the-doors-normalization/).

A man who can lock his own door at night can sleep. A key to that door is about as normal as prison life gets. Giving men keys to their own cells, with a master key and a working release for staff, would cost a fraction of the locking systems that run $8 million to $12 million a prison and that men have learned to beat. GDC already knows what a keyed lock costs: in 2023 it paid $63,028 for 80 keyed detention deadbolts, about $790 each. Before the next six prisons get the same systems, that number is worth weighing.

The fire marshal is due back at Washington in late October.

---

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**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.

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## Further Reading

**[Research Library: Georgia prison cell-door locking systems, spending, projects and failures, 2010-2026](https://gps.press/research-library/georgia-prison-cell-door-locking-systems-spending-projects-and-failures-2010-2026/)**

*The budget lines, contracts, audits and official statements behind this story, each tied to its source document.*

**[A Tale of Two Prisons: What Georgia Can Learn from Norway](https://gps.press/a-tale-of-two-prisons/)**

*How Norway runs its prisons on the principle of normality, and what Georgia could take from it.*

**[Bolted In: Georgia Prisons Lock the Fire Exits, and the State's Own Inspectors Keep Finding Them Locked](https://gps.press/bolted-in-georgia-prisons-lock-the-fire-exits-and-the-states-own-inspectors-keep-finding-them-locked/)**

*State fire inspectors found barrel bolts on the fire exits at Ware State Prison, and found them still there two months later.*

**[They Knew: Empty Posts, Broken Locks, and Georgia's Deadliest Prison Week](https://gps.press/they-knew-empty-posts-broken-locks-and-georgias-deadliest-prison-week/)**

*Open records on the January 2026 Washington State Prison riot, where four men died.*

**[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/)**

*A man chased across the Hancock State Prison yard was cornered at a gate the state built and locked.*

**[Georgia's "Hardened" Solution: Another Fortress Instead of Reform](https://gps.press/georgias-hardened-solution-another-fortress-instead-of-reform/)**

*Georgia is spending hundreds of millions on new "hardened" prisons while the problems inside go unfixed.*

**[When Nobody Comes: Surviving Georgia's Prisons](https://gps.press/when-nobody-comes-surviving-georgias-prisons/)**

*Nine contributors describe what daily survival requires inside Georgia custody, including medication missed behind a locked door.*

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## GPS Intelligence System

GPS keeps living research profiles in its Intelligence System. Those profiles pull together data, news, settlements, and analysis on Georgia's prisons and the issues that define them. For the issues raised in this article, the profiles below go deeper.

**[Conditions](https://gps.press/intelligence/issue/conditions/)**

*The physical state of Georgia's prisons, from broken locks and fire hazards to failing plumbing and heat.*

**[Violence](https://gps.press/intelligence/issue/violence/)**

*Assaults, stabbings and killings inside Georgia's prisons, and the conditions that allow them.*

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## Explore the Data

GPS opens GDC's own numbers to the public. It does this 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: 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.

There's a walkthrough for putting these resources to work with AI: **[How to Use GPS Data with AI Tools](https://gps.press/how-to-use-gps-data-with-ai-tools/)**. It's a step-by-step guide for researchers, advocates, families, and journalists working with tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini to analyze Georgia prison conditions, statistics, and policy.

Contact GPS at media@gps.press to get the underlying datasets used in this analysis.

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## About Georgia Prisoners' Speak (GPS)

Georgia Prisoners' Speak, GPS, is a nonprofit investigative newsroom. It was built with incarcerated reporters, families, advocates and data analysts. It operates independently of the Georgia Department of Corrections. What GPS documents is what 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.

GPS works through confidential reporting channels, secure communication, evidence verification, public-records requests, and legislative research, and it applies professional investigative standards to all of it. That is how the transparency gets built where the system doesn't provide it. The mission: expose abuses, protect incarcerated people, support families, and push Georgia toward reform grounded in 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)

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