Brief written July 18, 2026 from GPS Intelligence System data.(A)

Advocate Intelligence Brief

For: GPS Advocate Network members, prison-reform advocates, affected families, and allied organizations

From: Georgia Prisoners' Speak intelligence desk

This is your action brief. It leads with what you can do this month, points you to the campaigns that need your name and your share, and gives families concrete steps for filing records requests, escalating medical neglect, and finding legal help. Every number here traces to GPS-tracked data. Read it, act on one thing, and pass it forward.

Do These Three Things This Month

Before anything else, here are the three highest-leverage actions available to you right now:

1. Sign up for the GPS Advocate Network and pick a role (see the roles below). We need people who can write, call legislators, verify claims, and support families.
2. Submit a report if you or someone you love is inside — or share the intake link with a family who needs it: https://gps.press/submit-a-report/
3. Share one campaign URL this week. The two flagship campaigns are Vision 2027 (https://gps.press/intelligence/issue/vision-2027/) and End the Warehouse (https://gps.press/intelligence/issue/end-the-warehouse/). Post one, text one to a friend, or email one to your church, union, or civic group.

That's it. If you do nothing else in this brief, do those three. Everything below explains why they matter and how to go deeper.

Why This Moment Matters

The scale of the crisis is not in dispute anymore — not since the U.S. Department of Justice concluded in October 2024 that conditions inside the Georgia Department of Corrections violate the Eighth Amendment, describing them as "among the most severe violations" federal investigators had documented in any prison probe (DOJ CRIPA findings, Oct-2024). Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said incarcerated people are "maimed and tortured, relegated to an existence of fear, filth and not so benign neglect."

GPS has independently tracked at least 1,847 deaths in GDC custody since 2020 (GPS-tracked mortality data, canonical count). That number is a floor, not a ceiling — GDC reports causes of death roughly two months late, so the live count is always an undercount. The yearly toll has not improved: at least 333 deaths in 2024 (the deadliest year on record), at least 301 in 2025, and at least 145 already in 2026 year-to-date (GPS-tracked mortality data).

Meanwhile the state spends more than ever. The GDC budget reached $1,799,204,979 in amended FY2026 and peaked at an actual $1,913,888,054 in FY2025, the highest year on record (Governor's Budget Report, Amended FY2026/FY2027). That's roughly $86.61 per person per day to run a system the DOJ found unconstitutional. Money in, dysfunction out. That contradiction is the heart of every campaign in this brief.

Active Campaigns — Sign On and Share

Vision 2027: Post-Conviction Justice Reform

Campaign page to share: https://gps.press/intelligence/issue/vision-2027/

Vision 2027 rests on a single uncomfortable arithmetic: Georgia spends more than ever to run a system the DOJ found unconstitutional, while the best available research shows this incarceration buys little or no additional public safety.

The fiscal case is overwhelming. GPS analysis shows that cost avoidance from parole alone reached $343 million in FY2024, because community supervision costs $2.89 per day versus $86.61 for incarceration (GDC Budget analysis). Yet the state has slammed the door on release: the overall parole grant rate collapsed from 38 percent in FY2019 to a record-low 28 percent in FY2024, and for people serving life sentences, only 93 of 2,046 cases were granted (GDC Budget analysis).

The human cost of that closed door falls hardest on an aging population. As of April 2026, 27 percent of active prisoners — 12,777 individuals — were 50 or older, a demographic that accounts for 57.4 percent of all GPS-tracked deaths in custody yet recidivates at strikingly low rates (GDC Budget analysis). Nationwide, people released after 65 commit new crimes at just 3.5 percent versus a 41 percent general rate.

What you can do: - Share the Vision 2027 page with anyone who cares about fiscal responsibility, not just prison reform — this is a taxpayer story as much as a justice story. - Talk to your legislator about parole reform and the four-year habeas deadline the state's own Chief Justice called "broken" (Legal Access issue analysis, March 2026). Find yours at https://gps.press/find-your-legislator/. - Bring the aging-population numbers to any faith or civic group — the medical-release process requires an inmate to be "entirely incapacitated" with death expected within 12 months, one of the most restrictive standards in the nation.

End the Warehouse: Prison Transformation Plan

Campaign page to share: https://gps.press/intelligence/issue/end-the-warehouse/

End the Warehouse names the philosophy driving the deaths: Georgia chose to warehouse human beings instead of preparing them to come home. The evidence is stark. Georgia prison homicides exploded from 8–9 annually in 2017–2018 to 66 confirmed in 2024 (End the Warehouse analysis). The prison death rate rose 47% between 2019 and 2024; assaults on inmates rose 54% and assaults on staff rose 77% over the same period, per the DOJ-funded Safe Inside initiative report.

The alternative — normalization, where the punishment is the loss of liberty and nothing beyond it — has a name, an evidence base, and working examples in Scandinavia and on American soil, at a price lower than what Georgia already spends to fail (GPS solution article, "Reopen the Doors — Normalization," 2026-06-05).

What you can do: - Share the End the Warehouse page and pair it with the human stories: Anthony Zino, found dead in his cell at Smith State Prison in April 2024 — dead for five days before anyone noticed (End the Warehouse analysis). Marquis Jefferson, killed at Washington State Prison in May 2022 in a dorm so understaffed no one was watching (End the Warehouse analysis). - Push the gang-separation demand. GPS's flagship reporting shows Georgia has carried a statutory command to separate its most dangerous prisoners since 1897 under O.C.G.A. § 42-5-52 — and refuses to enforce it (GPS solution article, "On the Books Since 1897," 2026-05-22). Separation "costs nothing," and the state keeps choosing the bodies (GPS solution article, "Separate the Gangs," 2026-05-22).

Both campaigns need the same thing from you: a name attached to the demand and a share that puts the URL in front of someone new. Share one this week.

Facility-Level Priorities

GPS weights facilities by recent verified claim volume, corroboration backbone, mortality data, and settlement history. Here are the five where advocate attention is most needed right now.

1. Washington State Prison

Washington is the single largest cluster of recent family-attestation reporting in the GPS system, driven by a documented pattern of medical-order cancellations. Multiple family accounts describe a nurse practitioner canceling physician-ordered medications, special diets, orthotic shoes, and heart medication — in several instances without any examination (GPS family-attestation accounts, low-to-high weight). One family reports emailing the GDC Ombudsman in 2026 about these issues and receiving no response (family-attestation, high weight).

Washington is also where four men were killed in a single gang disturbance on January 11, 2026, at a facility then running roughly 72 percent officer vacancy (GPS solution article, "The Only Family Left," 2026-05-30). Recent deaths at Washington include Courtney Davis (2026-06-13), Isreal Moses Jones (2026-06-11), and Deshawn Poole (2026-06-09) (GPS-tracked mortality data).

Facility page: https://gps.press/facility/washington-state-prison/

Advocate priority: medical-neglect escalation support for families (see the escalation ladder below). The Ombudsman non-response is itself a documentable pattern advocates can build on.

2. Ware State Prison

GPS's investigation "At Least Nineteen: The Murders the State Didn't Prosecute" (2026-07-06) documents at least 19 homicides at Ware between 2020 and today, alongside twelve suicides and eight fatal overdoses. County coroner and state crime-lab records name a suspected attacker in eleven of those deaths — and in not one could GPS find any public record that the accused was ever charged, indicted, or tried. Those coroner and crime-lab records are public records and are independently obtainable from the county coroner's office via open-records request.

Ware, built in 1990 for roughly 500 people, now holds about 1,447 — nearly three times its design capacity. Recent deaths include KOJACK JUNIOR THOMAS (age 27, 2026-05-31), JUSTIN DEAN PULLEY (age 48, 2026-05-20), and JOHNATHAN CLEO HARDMAN-SIMMONS (age 36, 2026-05-20) (GPS-tracked mortality data).

Facility page: https://gps.press/facility/ware-state-prison/

Advocate priority: the prosecution gap. This is a district-attorney and accountability story — surface it to allied legal organizations and local press.

3. Valdosta State Prison

Valdosta reached an 80 percent officer vacancy rate by April 2024 per the Governor's own Guidehouse consultants, and houses the system's highest concentrations of gang members and people with mental illness (Staffing Crisis analysis). Former GDC assistant warden Russell Zirkle named Valdosta on the record as a facility running 70–80% vacancy (corroboration backbone, on-record and timestamped). Valdosta has seen a cluster of recent deaths: Ramon Ortiz (2026-07-04), Steven Bryant (2026-06-23), Antavious Bailey (2026-06-21), KEVIN JAMES FLAMER (age 26, 2026-05-28), and JEREMIAH ALAN BROWN (age 40, 2026-05-26) (GPS-tracked mortality data).

Facility page: https://gps.press/facility/valdosta-state-prison/

Advocate priority: staffing-crisis accountability. Zirkle's on-record testimony that the state "blends fully-staffed halfway houses into system averages" to hide these vacancy rates is a documentable claim you can carry to legislators.

4. Smith State Prison

Smith is the facility where seven prisoners were killed in 2024 alone — the most of any GDC facility (End the Warehouse analysis). Its former warden, Brian Adams, was indicted on May 13, 2026 by a Tattnall County grand jury on charges of racketeering, bribery, false statements, evidence tampering, and violation of his oath — for allegedly accepting bribes from a prison gang to allow contraband and to move the gang's leader out of solitary (GPS solution article, "The Game They Learned," 2026-05-16; public court record). Smith is also one of only three GDC kitchens to fall below the 70-point food-safety passing threshold since 2022, with rodent activity noted in every inspection GPS reviewed from 2022 through 2025 (Scores Without Sanitation analysis).

Facility page: https://gps.press/facility/smith-state-prison/

Advocate priority: the Adams indictment is a public, court-verified anchor for the corruption-and-staffing story. Use it.

5. Macon State Prison

Macon carries the corroborated 70–80% vacancy testimony from Russell Zirkle (corroboration backbone) and is the site of one of the most severe documented torture cases in the system: Glen Christian Krauch, held and tortured under a bunk for three weeks in June 2024, discovered only after he had to be life-flighted in a body bag (GPS solution article, "Three Weeks Under a Bunk," 2026-02-05). Every Georgia prison is required to conduct roughly eight population counts a day — meaning staff either walked past Krauch's hidden body repeatedly or never conducted the counts, while the paperwork was submitted either way.

Facility page: https://gps.press/facility/macon-state-prison/

Advocate priority: the phantom-count issue — documentation of counts that never happened — is a systemic pattern worth surfacing wherever a family reports a missing or unmonitored loved one.

Family Resources

If you are a family member, this section is for you. These steps are practical and available now.

How to File an Open-Records Request

Georgia's Open Records Act lets any member of the public request government records. This is how GPS obtains settlement ledgers, PREA audits, and death-investigation records.

• Coroner and medical-examiner records are public records. If your loved one died in custody and you want the death-investigation file, autopsy, or toxicology findings, you can request those directly from the county coroner's office where the facility is located, via an open-records request. These records name causes and, in some cases, suspected attackers — as the Ware investigation showed.
• Settlement and risk-management records are maintained by the Georgia Department of Administrative Services (DOAS) Risk Management division. GPS obtained the state's settlement ledger through exactly this route.
• Write your request in plain language, name the specific records you want, cite the Georgia Open Records Act, and keep a copy of what you send and when. Agencies have statutory deadlines to respond.
• If you hit a wall, submit a report to GPS (below) — documented non-response is itself evidence.

How to Escalate Medical Neglect

The Washington State Prison cluster is a roadmap of what medical-neglect escalation looks like — and where it stalls. Use this ladder:

1. Document everything in writing. Dates, medication names, canceled orders, co-pays paid, symptoms. Families at Washington documented co-pays paid for medications later canceled by a nurse practitioner without examination (family-attestation accounts). Written records are your strongest tool.
2. File a grievance through the facility's internal process. Be aware — GPS reporting documents that the grievance system is frequently weaponized against those who use it, so keep independent copies (Retaliation analysis).
3. Escalate to the medical contractor's legal department. Families at Washington have pursued complaints directly with the medical contractor over a nurse practitioner's pattern of canceling orders (family-attestation account).
4. File a complaint with the relevant nursing or medical licensing board. This is an external channel outside GDC's control.
5. Email the GDC Ombudsman — but do not rely on it alone. Multiple Washington families report emailing the Ombudsman in 2026 about serious medical issues and receiving no response (family-attestation, high weight). Document the silence.
6. Submit a report to GPS so the pattern enters the intelligence record.

Where to Find Legal Aid

• For post-conviction and habeas issues, understand the terrain first: Georgia's four-year habeas deadline under O.C.G.A. § 9-14-42 extinguishes many claims, and the state's own Chief Justice called the system "broken" and "a mess" (Legal Access and Legal Settlements analyses). Time matters — do not wait.
• For civil-rights claims, the Prison Litigation Reform Act requires exhausting the internal grievance process first, which is why the documentation ladder above matters so much (Retaliation analysis).
• The settlement record (below) shows which firms and cases have won payouts for deaths, medical neglect, and use of force — a starting point for identifying counsel who take these cases.
• Deep-dive briefings on Legal Access (https://gps.press/intelligence/issue/legal-access/) and Medical Neglect (https://gps.press/intelligence/issue/medical-neglect/) give you the framework and the precedents.

What GDC Paid Out — and For What

The settlement record is one of the strongest advocacy tools you have, because it converts denial into dollars. A ledger maintained by DOAS Risk Management, obtained by GPS through open-records requests, records hundreds of settlement checks (Legal Settlements analysis). The largest death-linked payouts:

• $4 million to the estate of David Lamar Henegar for a death at Johnson State Prison in 2021.
• $3.25 million for Reginald Jacobs Jr., who died of dehydration in a solitary confinement cell at Calhoun State Prison.
• $3.25 million to the family of Juan Carlos Ramirez Bibiano after a 2023 death at Telfair State Prison — one of at least five settlements clustered at Telfair since 2012.
• $3 million for Thomas Henry Giles, who died in the care of Augusta State Medical Prison.
• $2.99 million paid in 2021 to Khalid Mouton at Georgia State Prison.

Advocate framing: the state pays millions after people die, but will not spend to prevent the deaths. A man died of dehydration in a solitary cell and the state paid $3.25 million — the reforms that would have prevented it cost far less. Use these figures whenever officials call the crisis "propaganda" (as GPS reporting documents some prison leaders have — see "The Crisis Georgia's Prison Leaders Call 'Propaganda'," 2026-07-12).

Note on the recent federal docket: the settlement/verdict activity in the last several months (A. Philip Randolph Institute v. Raffensperger; multiple Daker and Humphreys v. Oliver matters; Grant v. Ward) all closed at $0, terminated without monetary judgment. GPS does not yet have public data indicating new large custodial payouts in this recent window — the multimillion-dollar death settlements above remain the anchor for the "this is what GDC paid out for what" argument. Full deep-dive: https://gps.press/intelligence/issue/legal-settlements/.

Crisis-Moment Guidance: Lockdowns and Disturbances

Lockdowns are now routine. On May 21, 2026, gang violence forced every state prison in Georgia onto lockdown in a single day, with deaths reported at Ware and Augusta and injuries at multiple facilities (GPS solution article, "On the Books Since 1897," 2026-05-22). A statewide lockdown, as GPS has written, is not a strategy — it is a confession that the state cannot tell you who is safe in which dorm.

If your loved one is inside during a lockdown or disturbance:

1. Expect communication to stop. Visitation is frequently cut off at affected facilities — Washington, Ware, and Hancock all had visitation suspended during recent lockdowns (GPS reporting). Silence is not confirmation of harm, but it is also not reassurance.
2. Document the timeline. Note when you last heard from your loved one, what they reported, and any names or dorm details. In a crisis, real-time family accounts are often the only record of what happened before GDC issues a bulletin.
3. Submit a report to GPS immediately. GPS operates a real-time reporting network of incarcerated sources and families across the state; during the April 1 and May 21 events, that network confirmed stabbings and life-flights facility-by-facility before official confirmation (GPS solution articles, "Blood on Blood" and related). Your report may fill a gap no one else can.
4. Do not assume GDC's public death count is complete. GDC reports causes of death roughly two months late, and GPS has documented systematic death misclassification and underreporting (Deaths in Custody analysis).
5. After the lockdown lifts, request records. Push for the incident report and, in the event of a death, the coroner's file from the county coroner's office.

Advocate role during crises: amplify verified GPS reporting, connect frightened families to the intake process, and resist the "wait for official confirmation" framing that lets the state control the timeline.

Submit a Report — and What GPS Does With It

Submit here: https://gps.press/submit-a-report/

When you submit a report — as an incarcerated person, a family member, or a witness — GPS:

• Sanitizes and provenance-stamps it, protecting sensitive sources. GPS does not expose source material about named living incarcerated people unless they are public officials, deceased, or already in court or news records.
• Weights it by source class (family-attestation, derived, court-verified) so that the intelligence record reflects evidentiary strength honestly.
• Corroborates it against the backbone — the vetted relationship graph that includes on-record testimony from former GDC commanders like Russell Zirkle and Tyler Ryals, DOJ findings, and open-records productions.
• Aggregates it into the facility and issue intelligence that powers the campaigns, the facility pages, and briefs like this one. The Washington State Prison medical-neglect cluster exists as a documented pattern because families submitted reports.

Your single report becomes part of a body of evidence the state cannot dismiss.

Tell My Story (TMS)

Intake: https://gps.press/tellmystory/

Tell My Story is the narrative intake channel. Where a report captures a discrete allegation or event, TMS captures the full human account — the arc of a person's incarceration, the medical decline, the family's fight, the survival. It is for incarcerated people and their families who want their experience documented in their own words.

TMS accounts are the raw material behind GPS's most powerful reporting — the kind that turned Glen Christian Krauch's three weeks under a bunk and Jimmy Trammell's death 72 hours from freedom into stories the public could not look away from. If you have a story that needs telling, this is where it goes.

Join the GPS Advocate Network

The intelligence in this brief is only as strong as the network that acts on it. Sign up, and pick a role. Here's where new advocates plug in:

• Records Requesters — File open-records requests for coroner files, settlement ledgers, and inspection reports. If you can write a clear request and track a deadline, this role builds the evidentiary backbone.
• Family Navigators — Help families work the medical-neglect escalation ladder, find legal aid, and submit reports. Compassion plus organization. This is the front line.
• Campaign Sharers — Get the Vision 2027 and End the Warehouse URLs in front of new audiences every week. Faith groups, unions, civic clubs, social feeds.
• Legislative Contacters — Use https://gps.press/find-your-legislator/ to build relationships with your representatives around parole reform, the habeas deadline, and gang separation. Persistence wins here.
• Claim Verifiers & Researchers — Help corroborate incoming reports against the public record and the corroboration backbone. Detail-oriented work with real weight.
• Crisis Responders — During lockdowns, amplify verified reporting and route families to intake fast.

Start with the fixed intelligence surfaces to get oriented: the system home at https://gps.press/intelligence/, the balanced overview at https://gps.press/intelligence/overview/, and the advocate hub at https://gps.press/intelligence/advocate/. Machine-readable facility data lives at https://gps.press/facilities-data/, and the mortality archive is at https://gps.press/georgia-prison-deaths/.

Coalition Partners — How to Plug In

The accountability ecosystem around Georgia corrections is real and growing. Advocates should track and, where appropriate, coordinate with:

• The U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, whose October 2024 CRIPA findings remain the single most authoritative account of the crisis and the legal engine for enforcement. Keep the findings central to every ask.
• Independent journalism documenting the crisis — The Marshall Project, which independently reported Georgia's roughly 60-cents-per-meal food costs in May 2026 (Prison Nutrition analysis); The Appeal, which reported in July 2026 on incarcerated people losing treasured media in tablet-contract changes; and outlets like the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 41NBC, WGXA, and 13WMAX carrying facility-level developments. Bring them documented, verified stories.
• Former GDC commanders on the record — Russell Zirkle and Tyler Ryals, whose corroborating testimony on the staffing coverup gives advocates insider validation of the state's own numbers. Their accounts are a resource you can cite.
• Legal and civil-rights organizations litigating conditions, medical neglect, and post-conviction access — identifiable in part through the settlement record above.
• Faith, veteran, and family networks — the affected community itself. Every family that submits a report or tells their story strengthens the whole.

To plug in: sign up for the Advocate Network, tell us your skills and your region, and we'll route you to the coalition work where you're needed most.

Your Next Step

The state spends nearly $1.8 billion a year to run a system the DOJ found unconstitutional, and people keep dying — at least 145 already this year, on top of at least 1,847 since 2020 (GPS-tracked mortality data). The evidence exists. The campaigns exist. What's missing is your name on them and your hands in the work.

Do this now:

1. Sign up for the GPS Advocate Network and pick a role — Records Requester, Family Navigator, Campaign Sharer, Legislative Contacter, Verifier, or Crisis Responder.
2. Submit a report or send the intake link to a family who needs it: https://gps.press/submit-a-report/
3. Share one campaign this week — Vision 2027 (https://gps.press/intelligence/issue/vision-2027/) or End the Warehouse (https://gps.press/intelligence/issue/end-the-warehouse/).

Pick one. Do it today. Then bring someone else in.