# GPS This Week — 15–29 August 2026 > ← All issuesGreetings: This week is about the space between what Georgia's own numbers say and what its prisons actually do. The parole board granted release to 93 of 2,046 lifers in FY2024 — 4.5 perc… **Published**: 2026-08-30 **Source**: https://gps.press/newsletter/2026-08-30/ **Author**: GPS Staff --- [← All issues](https://gps.press/newsletter/#past-issues) Greetings: This week is about the space between what Georgia's own numbers say and what its prisons actually do. The parole board granted release to 93 of 2,046 lifers in FY2024 — 4.5 percent, down from roughly one in five a generation ago — a collapse we read straight out of the Board's own 24 annual reports. Georgia voters gave that same board constitutional authority in 1994 to parole anyone 62 or older; thirty-two years later there is no rule, no process, and no record of it ever being used once. The pattern repeats where beds and money are counted. The state defined its prototype prisons as 500-cell facilities, then packed 24 of them to 208 percent of design. It appropriated $86 million for modular units sold as temporary, now calls them 524 permanent beds, and can show no contract. In the same period, men were killed thirty days and twenty months from home. We don't ask anyone to take our word for it. We published Georgia's entire code, built the Board's numbers into one series, and filed the records requests. The receipts were always the point. | | | --- | | **7** articles · **101** stories to legislators · **916** emails · **10** new advocates | ## New from GPS **Georgia's law, published in full and free on gps.press** GPS published the entire body of Georgia law it answers questions from: the Official Code of Georgia Annotated — all 29,000-plus sections, current through the 2026 session — plus the Georgia and United States Constitutions, the Uniform Superior Court Rules, the Code of Judicial Conduct, and the Rules of Professional Conduct. Every statute and rule now has its own page with full text, free and without a login, plus machine-readable editions for researchers. These texts were previously reachable mainly through commercial services that paywall readers. A quarterly check now watches all of it for amendments. [Read more](https://gps.press/ocga/) **Connect your AI directly to Georgia prison data: the GPS Public MCP server is live** AI tools that support the Model Context Protocol — including Claude and ChatGPT — can now connect straight to GPS's public datasets at data.gps.press/mcp, with no account or key. Twelve read-only tools cover population statistics, all 90 facilities, the mortality registry, parole statistics, the Georgia Code, settlements, and more, and every answer carries its source link and citation. [Step-by-step guide](https://gps.press/how-to-use-gps-data-with-ai-tools/) ## Significant work this period **GDC staff roster added to GPS's public data tools** GPS added the Georgia Department of Corrections staff roster — 7,395 records — to its public data tools. You can now look up who works at a given prison, with job titles and a headcount, through the Lighthouse AI, the public data API, and the GPS data server for AI assistants. The roster is a dated snapshot, so every answer carries the date it was observed. [Read more](https://gps.press/lighthouse/) **Vision 2027 now published in Spanish** Four Vision 2027 pages are now available in Spanish: how Georgia habeas actually works, the Sleeping Giants argument, the research library, and questions and objections. [Read more](https://gps.press/es/vision2027-es/) **Funding transparency statement published in English and Spanish** GPS published "How GPS Is Funded," a full funding-transparency statement: no donations solicited from the public, funding sources and conditions disclosed, and a standing commitment to list every institutional grant as it is awarded. Available in English and Spanish and linked from the About page. [Read more](https://gps.press/how-gps-is-funded/) **Testified to the Blue-Ribbon Committee: repeal Georgia's four-year habeas deadline** GPS gave testimony at the first road meeting of the Georgia House Blue-Ribbon Study Committee on Criminal Post-Conviction Litigation, held 21 August in Ellijay. A formerly incarcerated Georgian spoke for GPS and asked the committee to repeal the four-year deadline for filing a habeas corpus petition, added by the legislature in 2004. Georgia had no filing deadline for the previous 141 years, and eleven states still impose none. Committee members said they rarely hear from people who have recently been inside, and asked GPS to return for the next meeting on 18 September in Milledgeville. **Built the Parole Board's own lifer decision series, 2001 to 2025** GPS read the life-sentence parole figures out of twenty-one years of the State Board of Pardons and Paroles' own annual reports and assembled them into a single continuous series — the first time these numbers have existed in one place. Every year checks against the Board's own arithmetic. The record shows the grant rate for life-sentenced people falling from 30.1 percent in FY2003 to 4.5 percent in FY2024, while denials rose from 577 a year to 2,154. **Records requests filed on an in-custody homicide the state never explained** GPS filed two formal open-records requests on the 2023 killing of a man at a Georgia prison thirty days before his release date — a death the county medical examiner certified as a homicide and which drew no news coverage at the time. The first asks the district attorney whether anyone was ever charged, the disposition, and what physical evidence reached prosecutors. The second asks the state crime lab whether the tissue slides still exist, for the working notes behind a microscopic examination, and whether the retained blood specimen and clothing remain in custody. Under the Open Records Act, every possible answer is publishable — including no answer at all. ## Upcoming events **Blue-Ribbon Committee on Criminal Post-Conviction Litigation — public meeting** Thursday, 18 September 2026, 9:00 a.m., Old Capitol Building, Milledgeville. The public may attend. The committee is examining how people convicted in Georgia can challenge a conviction after trial, and it is taking testimony from the public as it goes. GPS spoke at its August meeting in Ellijay, where members said they rarely hear from people who have recently been inside, and GPS was asked to return. The committee's notice asks anyone who wants to give testimony to contact the committee office in advance. If you or someone in your family has been through Georgia's post-conviction process, this is a room where that experience is being asked for. ## Featured story [**The Swing Space That Wasn't: 524 New Beds, a Border-Wall Family, and No Contract Georgia Will Show**](https://gps.press/the-swing-space-that-wasnt-524-new-beds-a-border-wall-family-and-no-contract-georgia-will-show/) Georgia's General Assembly appropriated $86 million for modular prison units sold as temporary "swing space." GDC now calls them 524 permanent beds. The builder is owned by the Galveston family behind one of America's largest border-wall contractors — and no contract, award, or payment appears anywhere in the state's public records. 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 wants theirs heard. ## Articles published 8 articles this period, and 7 Spanish editions. **[Ten lessons from The Brothers Karamazov: Pathways to Success](https://gps.press/10-lessons-from-the-brothers-karamazov-justice-mercy-and-who-you-choose-to-become/)** Dostoevsky was marched before a firing squad, reprieved at the last moment, and sent to a Siberian prison camp for four years. The novel he wrote afterward turns on a trial that convicts an innocent man. GPS's new Pathways to Success article draws ten lessons from it for people inside and the families waiting on them. (Translation to Spanish in progress). [**The Swing Space That Wasn't: 524 New Beds, a Border-Wall Family, and No Contract Georgia Will Show**](https://gps.press/the-swing-space-that-wasnt-524-new-beds-a-border-wall-family-and-no-contract-georgia-will-show/) 24 August 2026 — $86 million was appropriated for modular units sold as temporary swing space; GDC now calls them 524 permanent beds, and no contract appears in the state's public records. [**Pleading From a Laundry Bin: The Killing Baldwin's Officers Were Warned About Is Now in Federal Court**](https://gps.press/pleading-from-a-laundry-bin-the-killing-baldwins-officers-were-warned-about-is-now-in-federal-court/) 24 August 2026 — Four Baldwin State Prison officers face a federal jury over the 2024 killing of Vincent Dyer, a death the complaint says they were warned about in writing the day before. [**BlUF: This Must Stop**](https://gps.press/bluf-this-must-stop/) 23 August 2026 — A mother says she has paid over $2,000 since June to protect her son at Wheeler Correctional Facility after he told her he would be harmed if she didn't send money. She demands the extortion stop. [**The Board That Stopped Saying Yes: Georgia's Lifer Parole Collapse, in Its Own Numbers**](https://gps.press/the-board-that-stopped-saying-yes-georgias-lifer-parole-collapse-in-its-own-numbers/) 19 August 2026 — Georgia's parole board granted release to just 93 of 2,046 lifers in FY2024 — 4.5 percent. A generation ago it granted one in five. GPS compiled all 24 of the Board's own annual reports. [**Nowhere to Put Him: How Georgia's Bed Math Killed a Man Thirty Days From Home**](https://gps.press/nowhere-to-put-him-how-georgias-bed-math-killed-a-man-thirty-days-from-home/) 16 August 2026 — Arthur Wimbush was killed at Phillips State Prison thirty days from release. The Chief of Security says every segregation bed was full. The medical examiner certified homicide. [**Georgia Parole Board Rejects Constitution**](https://gps.press/georgia-parole-board-rejects-constitution/) 15 August 2026 — In 1994, 81 percent of Georgia voters gave the parole board constitutional authority to parole anyone 62 or older. 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/) 15 August 2026 — Corey July had twenty months left when he was chased across the Hancock State Prison yard and cornered at a locked gate. Georgia built the gate, locked it, and left no one watching the corridor between. ## Postal Mailings this period 1 advocacy letter (certified). We put 101 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 916 emails sent this period: - Legislative: 880 - Media: 26 - Advocacy: 10 ## Open records requests 86 open records requests were made this period, to 13 different agencies or offices. ## New advocates 10 new advocates joined this period. ## 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. **[Research Library](https://gps.press/research-library/)** The documents, studies, and public records behind GPS's reporting — searchable, sourced, and free to explore. — The GPS Team — accountability@gps.press [Subscribe to GPS This Week](https://gps.press/newsletter/#signup)