# GPS This Week — July 18–August 1, 2026 > ← All issuesGreetings: This week is about a single column left blank. Georgia's 2024 mortality report lists 330 deaths and records a cause for none of them. For one month in early 2025 the state fille… **Published**: 2026-08-02 **Source**: https://gps.press/newsletter/2026-08-02/ **Author**: GPS Staff --- [← All issues](https://gps.press/newsletter/#past-issues) Greetings: This week is about a single column left blank. Georgia's 2024 mortality report lists 330 deaths and records a cause for none of them. For one month in early 2025 the state filled that column in — 41 percent of the deaths were homicides — and then the column disappeared again. So GPS is filling it in from the outside. This period we processed 208 GBI documents covering 88 deaths, and 59 of them now carry a certified cause and manner the state never published — five of which contradict what Georgia did publish. We filed 156 more records requests, 56 concerning deaths recorded as suicides and 100 where we have cause as unknown, each asking the state to say on the record if it holds no record at all. And we found, in Georgia's own numbers, that it has no hepatitis C test result for more than half the people in its custody — a disease curable since 2014, and one a 41-year-old man died from inside. We don't ask anyone to take our word for it. When the state leaves the column empty, we obtain the medical examiner's findings and put the record where officials can act on it. The receipts were always the point. | | | --- | | **8** articles · **97** stories to legislators · **814** emails · **4** new advocates | ## New from GPS ### [Launched the GPS Action Toolkits](https://gps.press/toolkits/) A new Toolkits hub collects nine free, plain-language tools for taking documented, lawful action: guides to documenting a 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. [See the toolkits →](https://gps.press/toolkits/) ### [New tool: Write the Georgia Board of Corrections](https://gps.press/write-the-board/) 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/) ## Significant work this period ### GBI reports received covering 88 deaths — 59 now carry a cause the state never published GPS received and processed 208 documents from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation covering 88 deaths in Georgia prison custody. From them, 59 deaths now carry a certified cause and manner in the GPS mortality record — established from the medical examiner's findings, because Georgia's own reporting leaves the cause blank. Five reports contradict the cause the state itself published. Certification is also extraordinarily slow: several were certified between four and thirteen months after examination, which is why records obtained from counties earlier this summer still read "pending." The requests continue. ### Fifty-state survey of post-conviction procedure completed GPS completed a 50-state research survey documenting how each state handles claims that a conviction was obtained unconstitutionally — what procedures exist, what deadlines apply, and what avenues remain once those deadlines pass. Every finding is sourced to a primary legal authority and quoted verbatim, with each citation independently re-verified against the original source. The work supports GPS's post-conviction reform effort in Georgia. ### [Georgia has no hepatitis C test result for more than half the people in its prisons](https://gps.press/the-cure-exists-a-41-year-old-died-of-hepatitis-c-in-a-georgia-prison/) In verifying our investigation into the death of a 41-year-old man from a curable disease, GPS found — in Georgia's own monthly statistical profile — that the Department of Corrections holds a hepatitis C test result for only 49 percent of the people in its custody, compared with 87 percent for HIV. More people have no result on file than have a negative one. [Read more →](https://gps.press/the-cure-exists-a-41-year-old-died-of-hepatitis-c-in-a-georgia-prison/) ### 56 open records requests filed with the GBI Over ten days GPS filed 56 open records requests with the GBI — 36 of them in a single evening — each seeking the official record of one death in GDC custody, including the certified cause and manner. Most concern deaths the state has recorded as suicides. Each cites O.C.G.A. 45-16-24, which requires a medical examiner's inquiry both for a death "by suicide or casualty" and for the death of an inmate of a state or local penal institution, and asks the Division to state affirmatively if it holds no record — so that an absence of records is itself on the record. ### [Fourth model bill published: The Plain Error Review Act](https://gps.press/vision2027/model-legislation/plain-error-review-act/) GPS published a fourth drafted bill in its Vision 2027 model-legislation package. The Plain Error Review Act would let Georgia's appellate courts correct clear, outcome-affecting errors directly on the record in all criminal cases — as the federal system has since 1944 — instead of forcing those errors through years of ineffective-assistance litigation. The full package was also updated with strengthened citations throughout. [Read more →](https://gps.press/vision2027/model-legislation/plain-error-review-act/) ### IRS confirms GPS's public-charity status The IRS has classified The GDC Accountability Project, Inc. — the legal entity behind Georgia Prisoners' Speak — as a publicly supported charity under sections 509(a)(1) and 170(b)(1)(A)(vi), correcting an earlier private-foundation classification. For supporters, contributions are now deductible at the higher limit that applies to public charities. For the organization, it opens foundation grant programs restricted to public charities and removes the limits private foundations face in advocating for legislation — which matters as the Vision 2027 package moves toward the 2027 session. ### 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. ## Featured story ### [“I'll Take Care of It”](https://gps.press/ill-take-care-of-it/) A direct witness describes a warden at Dooly in 2022 responding to a man who spoke up during a dorm inspection with “I'll take care of it” — after which about ten gang members converged, huddled, and walked the man to his room; he emerged days later barely able to walk, his face swollen. The account describes the arrangement as systemic: gangs rewarded with contraband tolerance and opened doors. This is GPS's first published first-person account of GDC staff commissioning prisoner violence rather than merely failing to prevent it. [Read the story →](https://gps.press/ill-take-care-of-it/) Have a story from inside Georgia's prisons? Share it through [Tell My Story](https://gps.press/tell-my-story/) — and refer a loved one inside who has something to say. ## Articles published - [The Cure Exists: A 41-Year-Old Died of Hepatitis C in a Georgia Prison](https://gps.press/the-cure-exists-a-41-year-old-died-of-hepatitis-c-in-a-georgia-prison/) — July 29, 2026 A man died at 41 of cirrhosis caused by chronic hepatitis C, a disease curable since 2014. The Justice Department found Georgia treating roughly ten percent of the people it knew were infected. (Also in Spanish.) - [The Empty Column: Georgia Won't Say How Prisoners Die](https://gps.press/the-empty-column-georgia-wont-say-how-prisoners-die/) — July 25, 2026 Georgia's 2024 mortality report has a “Cause of Death” column left empty for all 330 people. For one month in January 2025 the state filled it in — and 41 percent of the deaths were homicides. Then the column disappeared. (Also in Spanish.) - [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/) — July 19, 2026 Georgia's prisons have passed 273 straight PREA audits without a single failed standard, while the DOJ calls sexual abuse there “rampant.” GPS examines 15,542 allegations and a 3.5% substantiation rate. (Also in Spanish.) ## Mailings this period We mailed 20 advocacy letters this period (2 sent certified). We also put 97 firsthand stories from inside directly into Georgia legislators' hands — real accounts mailed as Tell My Story postcards, each carrying a pull-quote and a QR code to the full story, delivered as physical mail so lawmakers can't look away from what's happening in their prisons. 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 814 emails sent this period: - Legislative: 798 - Advocacy: 16 ## New advocates 4 new advocates joined GPS this period. ## Explore GPS Two corners of GPS worth a look: ### [GPS Quote Bank](https://gps.press/quote-bank/) A searchable archive of voices from inside and around Georgia's prisons — the words behind the reporting, sourced and citable. [Browse the Quote Bank →](https://gps.press/quote-bank/) ### [GDC Policy Library](https://gps.press/GDC-Policy-Library/) Every GDC standard operating procedure GPS could obtain, organized and searchable — see the rules the system is supposed to follow. [Open the Policy Library →](https://gps.press/GDC-Policy-Library/) — The GPS Team — accountability@gps.press [Subscribe to GPS This Week](https://gps.press/newsletter/#signup)