# GPS This Week — July 11–25, 2026 > ← All issuesGreetings: This week is about a paper trail built to say everything is fine while the record says otherwise. Georgia's prisons have passed 273 straight PREA audits without a single failed … **Published**: 2026-07-26 **Source**: https://gps.press/newsletter/2026-07-26/ **Author**: GPS Staff --- [← All issues](https://gps.press/newsletter/#past-issues) Greetings: This week is about a paper trail built to say everything is fine while the record says otherwise. Georgia's prisons have passed 273 straight PREA audits without a single failed standard — over the same years GPS documents 15,542 allegations and a 3.5% substantiation rate, and the DOJ calls the abuse there "rampant." The pattern repeats. Two former commanders say the state hides its staffing collapse by manipulating the numbers it reports. Leaders called an unconstitutional-conditions finding "propaganda." One commander warned in a sworn statement that conditions were unconstitutional; twelve days later the state marked him "resigned." And Georgia has poured $12.2 billion into its prisons since 2020 while buying its deadliest years. We don't ask anyone to take our word for it. We filed a formal Open Records complaint over the $96,000 Georgia has quoted to keep its own records out of reach, built the missing front door to the board that oversees the system, and put 77 firsthand stories directly into legislators' hands. The receipts were always the point. | | | --- | | **14** articles · **77** stories to legislators · **792** emails · **12** new advocates | ## New from GPS **Launched the GPS Action Toolkits — a complete self-help ladder.** Nine free, plain-language tools for taking documented, lawful action: guides to documenting your case, filing and appealing grievances, requesting public records (with ready-to-file templates, a coroner-records finder, and a secure way to send GPS what agencies produce), reporting to oversight bodies, a families' guide for deaths in custody, and a starter guide to pro se court filings — plus an AI Grievance Builder that turns a person's own account into a structured, policy-cited grievance draft. Legal information, not legal advice, with retaliation-safety notes throughout. [Explore the Toolkits](https://gps.press/toolkits/) ## Significant work this period **New tool: Write the Georgia Board of Corrections.** The citizen board that oversees the GDC publishes no contact information for its members — not a single email address. GPS built the missing front door: pick a sitting board member, pick a policy message the board has the power to act on, and it opens in your own email client, sent from your own address. Members without a public inbox are listed with a verified mailing address instead. [Write the board](https://gps.press/write-the-board/) **Filed a formal Open Records Act complaint with the Georgia Attorney General.** GPS filed a documented non-compliance complaint with the Attorney General's Open Government Mediation Program — by certified mail and the official webform — laying out what it now costs to see Georgia's prison records: $6,370 quoted for staffing records, $88,944 quoted just to retrieve three months of inmate trust-fund files, months of silence on lawful requests, and blanket denials. The fees Georgia agencies have demanded of GPS so far total more than $96,000. **Published "Who Is Responsible" — GPS's accountability brief on Georgia's prison crisis.** The flagship brief names who is responsible across the four institutions that built and run the system: a General Assembly and Governor who funded an unsustainable system (about $12.2 billion since 2020, with no drop in the population), a Parole Board that releases roughly 4.5% of people serving life, and a Department of Corrections that has refused no-cost reforms like gang separation and priced public records out of reach ($96,715 quoted for basic access). [Read the brief](https://gps.press/who-is-responsible/) **Built a searchable database of Georgia's PREA prison sexual-abuse records — and found an audit that never fails.** GPS compiled the GDC's own PREA records into a searchable database: eleven years of system-wide sexual-abuse and harassment allegation data (2014–2024) alongside all 273 facility audit reports across five audit cycles. Across every one of those 273 audits, not a single standard was ever marked "not met," even as facilities logged hundreds of allegations a year and substantiated only a small fraction. The data now grounds GPS's public Sexual Abuse in Custody intelligence profile. [See the data](https://gps.press/intelligence/issue/sexual-abuse/) ## Featured story [Rampant, Yet Compliant: The Paper Trail That Hides Sexual Violence in Georgia's Prisons](https://gps.press/rampant-yet-compliant-the-paper-trail-that-hides-sexual-violence-in-georgias-prisons/) — Georgia's prisons have passed 273 straight PREA audits without a single failed standard. The DOJ calls sexual abuse there "rampant." GPS examines 15,542 allegations, a 3.5% substantiation rate, and the story of Ashley Diamond to expose the gap between Georgia's paperwork and its prisons. Have an account from inside? Share it through [Tell My Story](https://gps.press/tell-my-story/), and refer a loved one inside who has one to tell. ## Articles published Each English article below is also available in Spanish on the site. - [Rampant, Yet Compliant: The Paper Trail That Hides Sexual Violence in Georgia's Prisons](https://gps.press/rampant-yet-compliant-the-paper-trail-that-hides-sexual-violence-in-georgias-prisons/) — Jul 19. 15,542 allegations, a 3.5% substantiation rate, and 273 audits without a failed standard. - [What's Really Behind Georgia's Prison Crisis?](https://gps.press/whats-really-behind-georgias-prison-crisis/) — Jul 16. Georgia poured $2.4 billion in new money into its prisons since 2021, on top of $12.2 billion since 2020, and bought the deadliest years in the system's history. - [Two Commanders Say Georgia Hides Its Prison Staffing Crisis](https://gps.press/two-commanders-say-georgia-hides-its-prison-staffing-crisis/) — Jul 15. Two former GDC commanders independently say Georgia hides its staffing collapse by manipulating the numbers it reports to the public. - [The Punishment for Speaking Up in Georgia's Prisons](https://gps.press/the-punishment-for-speaking-up-in-georgias-prisons/) — Jul 15. A review of GPS's own case files shows retaliation isn't a series of accidents — it is a system, and its purpose is silence. - [The Abuse Provision: Georgia's Forgotten Prison Clause](https://gps.press/the-abuse-provision-georgias-forgotten-prison-clause/) — Jul 12. An 1868 constitutional ban on abusing anyone "in being arrested, while under arrest, or in prison," cited only ten times since. - [The Crisis Georgia's Prison Leaders Call 'Propaganda'](https://gps.press/the-crisis-georgias-prison-leaders-call-propaganda/) — Jul 12. The DOJ found Georgia's prisons unconstitutional; corrections leaders had a different word for the crisis. - [The Georgia Prison Commander Who Warned the State](https://gps.press/the-georgia-prison-commander-who-warned-the-state/) — Jul 11. Tyler Ryals warned leadership in a sworn statement that conditions were unconstitutional; twelve days later the state marked him "resigned." ## Mailings this period 21 advocacy letters (2 certified). We put 77 firsthand stories from inside directly into Georgia legislators' hands this period — real accounts mailed as Tell My Story postcards, each carrying a pull-quote and a QR code to the full story. Have a story that belongs in a legislator's hands? Share it at [gps.press/tellmystory](https://gps.press/tellmystory). ## Emails sent on your behalf 792 emails this period: - Legislative: 773 - Advocacy: 19 ## New advocates 12 new subscribers joined this period. ## Explore GPS Two corners of GPS worth a look: **GDC Statistics Portal.** Interactive dashboards that turn GDC's dense reports into plain numbers — population, deaths, parole, and drug data — updated within days of each official release. [Open the portal](https://gps.press/gdc-statistics/) **Ask GPS Lighthouse (AI).** Ask anything about Georgia's prison system and get answers drawn from GPS's investigative archive, court records, and data — free, no login. [Ask GPS](https://gps.press/ask-ai/) — The GPS Team — accountability@gps.press [Subscribe to GPS This Week](https://gps.press/newsletter/#signup)