# GPS This Week — August 1–15, 2026 > ← All issuesGreetings: This week is about the records Georgia does not keep — and the ones it keeps but will not use. Voters gave the parole board constitutional authority to release anyone 62 or olde… **Published**: 2026-08-16 **Source**: https://gps.press/newsletter/2026-08-16/ **Author**: GPS Staff --- [← All issues](https://gps.press/newsletter/#past-issues) Greetings: This week is about the records Georgia does not keep — and the ones it keeps but will not use. Voters gave the parole board constitutional authority to release anyone 62 or older; thirty-two years later there is no rule, no process, and no record of it ever being used once. Georgia superior courts disposed of 3,955 habeas petitions between 2021 and 2025 but do not record whether a single one succeeded — and 58.4 percent of those litigants had no lawyer, more than twice the statewide rate. The state stopped publishing why people die in its prisons; this period GPS documented a cause for 323 more of them, including three deaths logged as undetermined after the state's own lab had already named the cause. We don't ask anyone to take our word for any of it. Every figure is cited to the report and page it came from, every legal claim to the statute or decision it rests on. The receipts were always the point. | | | --- | | **7** articles · **50** stories to legislators · **841** emails · **10** new advocates | ## New from GPS ### [Site-wide search: ask gps.press a question in plain English](https://gps.press/find/) GPS built and launched a search that understands questions, not just keywords. Ask "how many people are in GDC custody" or "what happens if I miss the habeas deadline" and it returns the exact section of the page that answers it — reading across every article, facility profile, statistics page, research library, policy library and advocacy tool GPS has published. Results appear instantly and are re-ordered by AI for relevance. Free, no login, English and Spanish. ### Georgia's legal code updated for the laws that took effect July 1 GPS rebuilt the full text of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated behind its free legal-information service and layered on the Acts of the 2026 session. The code now reflects Georgia law as it stands after July 1 — subsection structure, case annotations, and provisions created this year that older copies do not contain. It was checked by putting 25 questions about Georgia post-conviction law to the service and confirming every answer against the source. ## Significant work this period ### [Every Georgia Parole Board annual report, now searchable and page-cited](https://gps.press/parole-statistics-data/) GPS obtained and indexed all 24 annual reports the State Board of Pardons and Paroles publishes online — fiscal years 2001 through 2025 — and built a public, year-by-year statistical record from them. Every figure is cited to the exact report and page it came from. The GPS statistics portal now carries a Parole Board section built entirely from these reports: releases to parole, the supervision population, completion rates, revocations, and life-sentence decisions, year by year since 2001, with reporting changes and definition breaks footnoted. The whole dataset is published as an open, machine-readable resource. [See the statistics portal.](https://gps.press/gdc-statistics/) ### Open-records push on parole and prison records GPS pressed several open-records fronts: paying the Parole Board to produce its unpublished 1989–2000 annual reports, which hold the board's historical record of parole and commutation decisions including release programs the state has not run in decades; challenging the Board's refusal to release aggregate parole data it says it does not have to compile; chasing two overdue cost estimates from the Department of Corrections; and re-filing a state-level request for prison water-testing records after a district office said its systems could not reach them. ### [Legislator scorecard rebuilt and expanded to 99 bills](https://gps.press/scorecard/bills/) GPS rebuilt its public legislator scorecard. Letter grades are gone entirely — the pages now show what each legislator voted on and sponsored, with no grade, curve, or ranking. Justice reform and prison reform are tracked separately, and bills outside GPS's stated positions were dropped from scoring. The bill record was then expanded from 17 bills to 99 across the 2021–2022, 2023–2024 and 2025–2026 sessions, so readers can see who authored a bill, who co-sponsored it, and how every legislator voted — including the many prison and post-conviction reform bills that died in committee without a recorded vote, where sponsorship is the only public record there is. Bills GPS has taken no position on appear too, marked as tracked, so the record is complete. The advocacy totals on each page were also corrected after an earlier version undercounted contacts. ### Written recommendation submitted to Georgia's post-conviction study committee GPS submitted a three-part written recommendation to the Georgia House Study Committee on Criminal Post-Conviction Litigation, asking the General Assembly to repeal the four-year filing deadline on habeas corpus petitions — the deadline that closes Georgia's only post-appeal courthouse door. Every statement in the submission is backed by a verified quotation from Georgia statute or case law. ### [323 more prison deaths now carry a documented cause](https://gps.press/georgia-prison-deaths/) Georgia stopped publishing why people die in its prisons, so GPS has been rebuilding that record one document at a time. This period GPS added a documented cause of death to 323 more people in its mortality database — some from medical examiner records obtained through open-records requests, the rest from the Department's own coding recovered from a public research dataset. Among them, three deaths the prison system had recorded as undetermined were reclassified after the state's own forensic lab had already named the cause: two methamphetamine, one fentanyl. The share of deaths in the database carrying a documented cause rose from 45 percent to 61 percent. Every figure remains a floor: for hundreds of deaths since 2020, no one will say how the person died. ### GPS challenged a $488 fee for records the agency's own policy prints on demand The Department of Corrections estimated $488.64 — sixteen hours of staff time — to produce food-service cost reports. GPS challenged the charge in full, citing the Department's own written policy, which states the report is available for printing on demand. The estimate also arrived twenty business days after the deadline the Open Records Act sets for telling a requester what a request will cost. ### [Georgia does not record whether post-conviction cases succeed](https://gps.press/post-conviction-fifty-states/) Georgia superior courts received 4,425 habeas corpus petitions between 2021 and 2025 and disposed of 3,955 — roughly nine hundred a year. Using the state's own caseload reporting, GPS established that the Administrative Office of the Courts records how many cases are filed and decided, but not the outcome — whether relief was granted or denied. Nor can the outcome be recovered from published decisions, since an appeal from a habeas denial requires permission from the Supreme Court of Georgia, usually refused by unpublished order. Of the 3,955 cases disposed, 2,309 involved a litigant with no lawyer — 58.4 percent, more than twice the 27.7 percent statewide rate of self-representation across all superior court case types. Georgia appoints no counsel in a first post-conviction proceeding and is the only state where no assessment of a petition's merit occurs before the merits are reached. GPS has written to the Administrative Office of the Courts asking it to confirm the figures and say whether outcome data exists, and will publish the answer either way. ### [The full fifty-state post-conviction record, published as evidence](https://gps.press/post-conviction-fifty-states-data/) GPS published the complete evidence behind its fifty-state survey of post-conviction procedure: the state-by-state table plus a detailed table for every question surveyed — where an ineffective-assistance claim must be raised, the time limit, counsel in a first post-conviction proceeding, how self-represented petitions are screened, where the petition is filed, the bar on successive petitions, and whether the original trial judge hears the challenge. Every cell names the statute, rule or decision it rests on and quotes the language, so any reader can check it. ### [Help us grow the Advocacy Network — forward this email](https://gps.press/become-an-advocate/) The Advocacy Network writes to each advocate's own state legislators on their behalf every week, and copies the advocate on every letter. It works on one principle: legislators answer to the people who can vote for them, so a letter from inside a district carries weight a petition signature never will. That means the network's reach is the number of districts we can speak into — and there are 236 seats under the Gold Dome. If you are already an advocate, forward this email to one friend or family member in Georgia and ask them to sign up. It takes two minutes and no prior knowledge. If you are not signed up yet, this is the ask. ## Featured stories ### [Georgia Parole Board Rejects Constitution](https://gps.press/georgia-parole-board-rejects-constitution/) In 1994, 81 percent of Georgia voters gave the parole board constitutional authority to parole anyone 62 or older — an exception written into the same amendment that created life without parole. Thirty-two years later, the Board has no rule, no process, and no record of ever using it once. ### [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/) Corey July had twenty months left on a Floyd County sentence when he was chased across the Hancock State Prison yard and cornered at a locked gate. His killer got life without parole. But Georgia built the gate, locked it, and left no one watching the corridor between. Have a story from inside, or a loved one who does? Share it through [Tell My Story](https://gps.press/tell-my-story/), and pass the link to someone inside who should be heard. ## Articles published **7 articles this period, plus 5 Spanish editions.** [Georgia Parole Board Rejects Constitution](https://gps.press/georgia-parole-board-rejects-constitution/) — Aug 15 Voters gave the parole board power to release anyone 62 or older; 32 years on, the Board has no rule, no process, and no record of ever using it. [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/) — Aug 15 Cornered at a locked gate at Hancock State Prison with no one watching the corridor between. [Five Hours in a Shower Stall](https://gps.press/five-hours-in-a-shower-stall/) — Aug 9 Georgia's own death investigators recorded what happened to four men at Washington State Prison, where the response to a medical crisis was a placement, not treatment. [Eight Questions for the Next Governor](https://gps.press/eight-questions-for-the-next-governor/) — Aug 8 The same eight questions on Georgia's prison crisis went to both nominees for governor. One campaign answered all eight in writing; the other has not responded. [Georgia's Family-Package Monopoly](https://gps.press/georgias-family-package-monopoly-gps/) — Aug 6 Georgia ended direct family packages and funneled families to one vendor — single T-shirts at $4.55–$9.25 plus shipping and tax, and the state has never disclosed its cut. ["We Did a Lot of the Breaking": Georgia's Top Judge Asks Lawmakers to Fix the Post-Conviction System](https://gps.press/georgias-post-conviction-committee-the-first-meeting/) — Aug 2 Inside the first meeting of the Blue-Ribbon Study Committee on Criminal Post-Conviction Litigation, and what to watch as it shapes the 2027 session. [GCI: Georgia's $326M No-Bid, $0-Wage Corp](https://gps.press/gci-georgias-326m-no-bid-0-wage-corp-gps/) — Aug 2 Georgia Correctional Industries took $325.7M from GDC over eight years — a mandatory, no-bid "preferred source" running farms and factories on $0 wages. ## Postal Mailings this period 2 advocacy letters (1 certified). We also put 50 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, 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 [https://gps.press/tellmystory](https://gps.press/tellmystory). ## Emails sent on your behalf 841 emails were sent this period — 801 Legislative, 26 Media, 14 Advocacy. ## Open records requests 147 open records requests were made this period, to 15 different agencies or offices. ## New advocates 10 new advocates joined this period. Welcome. ## Explore GPS Two corners of GPS worth a look: ### [Search gps.press](https://gps.press/find/) Ask a question in plain English — "how many people are in GDC custody", "what is the habeas deadline" — and get the exact page and section that answers it, across everything GPS has published. Free, no login, English and Spanish. ### [Facility Intelligence Profiles](https://gps.press/intelligence/) Deep-dive profiles of each GDC facility: conditions, deaths in custody, leadership, and documented incidents, drawn from GPS's records. — The GPS Team — accountability@gps.press [Subscribe to GPS This Week](https://gps.press/newsletter/#signup)