Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
Georgia’s 2026 legislative session begins this January—the second half of the 2025–2026 biennium. That means unfinished business from last year, including Senate Bill 25 (SB 25), is still alive.
SB 25, known as the Parole Transparency Act, would require the Parole Board to provide video-conference hearings before a tentative parole date and written findings when parole is denied or delayed. It’s a simple step toward fairness and accountability—we think there needs to be more.
That’s why some advocates are pushing for something bigger: the Second Chance Parole Reform Act of 2026. This proposal builds on SB 25 and lays out a blueprint for real change—presumptive parole, mandatory hearings, oversight, and expedited review for elderly and terminally ill prisoners.
Bridging Reform and Rights
SB 25 lays the foundation for transparency—requiring hearings and written reasons when parole is denied. The Second Chance Parole Reform Act builds on that same spirit by ensuring those hearings actually mean something. It introduces what advocates call presumptive parole: a standard that says once someone has completed their programs, maintained good conduct, and prepared for reentry, they should be released unless clear evidence shows a continuing risk.
This small but powerful shift creates a genuine right to fair consideration—a promise that parole decisions will be based on facts, not politics or silence. It doesn’t take power away from the Board; it simply ensures accountability to the same principles of justice that Georgia’s laws already uphold.
Both SB 25 and the Second Chance Act share the same goal: to restore trust, transparency, and fairness to Georgia’s parole process. Together, they can turn parole from an uncertainty into a system of earned opportunity—one that protects public safety while reuniting families and rewarding rehabilitation.
At a minimum, we need to add the presumptive parole language to SB25.
Together, these reforms could restore hope to thousands of Georgia families and make parole what it was meant to be: a path home for those who’ve earned it.
Key Dates to Watch
- Session Start: January 13, 2026
- Crossover Day: Early March (around March 6)
- Sine Die: Early April
If SB 25 doesn’t pass the Senate by Crossover Day, it likely won’t move again until 2027. Public pressure between January and March is critical.
How You Can Help
1. Call or email your legislators. Tell them you support SB 25 and the Second Chance Parole Reform Act of 2026.
- Message: “Please support parole transparency and second chances. Georgia families deserve fairness and accountability.”
2. Share your story with the Georgia General Assembly committees when hearings are announced—written or video testimony both matter.
3. Use ImpactJustice.AI to:
- Instantly send personalized emails to lawmakers
Every message makes a difference. Every family deserves to be heard.
This is our moment to bring humanity back into Georgia’s justice system.
Transparency is the first step. A second chance is the goal.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” — Margaret Mead
📚 Further Reading on Parole Reform & Decarceration
1. Fixing Georgia’s Parole System: The Ultimate Plan for Justice
A comprehensive roadmap to create fairness, transparency, and accountability in Georgia’s parole process.
2. A Second Chance for Georgia: Fixing Parole With the Reform It Desperately Needs
Introduces the Second Chance Parole Reform Act of 2026 — a bold proposal for presumptive parole, mandated hearings, and oversight.
3. The Felon Train: How Georgia Turns Citizens into Convicts
Examines how Georgia’s justice system prioritizes punishment over rehabilitation and perpetuates mass incarceration.
4. Punishment for Profit: How Georgia’s Justice System Makes Millions
Reveals how incarceration is financially incentivized — and why parole reform is key to breaking the profit cycle.
5. Buried Alive: Innocent and Sentenced to Life in Prison
A powerful story illustrating how Georgia’s parole failures and wrongful convictions intersect to destroy lives.
6. A Simple Message for the GDC
Outlines practical, immediate steps Georgia could take to reduce violence, release rehabilitated inmates, and restore safety through responsible decarceration.
The Architecture Is the Evidence
Georgia built prisons for 24,657. They warehouse 42,869.
Dorms tripled. Cells double- and triple-bunked. Medical, kitchens, libraries — unchanged. Every facility, every design figure, every source.
See the receipts →Georgia families are trapped in a parole system that operates in complete secrecy, denying basic transparency about release decisions. If reform doesn't pass by March, it won't move again until 2027. Share this story—silence enables a broken system that separates families without accountability.
SB 25 should be struck down. This is the opposite of will of the American people. Reform would mean holding judges & parole boards accountable for the early release of violent criminals. I’m all for transparency, if that means judges & parole board members have to sign their name as to be held accountable for the crimes of violent parolees released early.
Hi Dustin, thanks for taking the time to comment.
A couple of factual notes first: SB 25 did not pass — it never made it out of the legislature. And judges don’t grant parole. That’s the role of the State Board of Pardons and Paroles, which operates independently of the courts. Judges impose sentences. The Parole Board decides, within the bounds of those sentences and state law, when someone becomes eligible for supervised release.
On the broader question of parole itself — we’d push back, respectfully. Parole isn’t the opposite of accountability. It *is* accountability, structured over time. A person on parole is supervised, drug-tested, employed or required to be looking, checking in regularly, and one violation away from going back inside. Compare that to someone who maxes out their sentence and walks out the door with no supervision at all. Which of those situations is safer for the community?
Parole exists because human beings change. The 22-year-old who committed a violent crime is, twenty years later, often a fundamentally different person — older, calmer, frequently in poor health, and statistically very unlikely to reoffend. Holding him in a cell at tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars per year past the point where he poses a danger doesn’t make anyone safer. It just costs taxpayers money and forecloses the possibility that he might contribute something — to his family, to a younger person heading down the same road, to the community he harmed.
A fair society has to leave room for the possibility of change. Not because every person earns it, but because a system that says *no one* can ever earn it is a system that has given up on the idea of justice and settled for vengeance. Compassion in this context isn’t softness — it’s the willingness to look at a person as they are now, not only as they were on their worst day, and to ask honestly whether continued incarceration serves any purpose beyond punishment for its own sake.
Transparency we agree on. Parole Board decisions in Georgia are famously opaque, and that opacity hurts victims, families of the incarcerated, and public trust alike. There’s a real conversation to be had about opening those proceedings up. We’d welcome you in it.
— GPS