New: GPS This Week is now on our website in English and Spanish, and so is every past issue. The links at the top of this email open this issue in either language, so you can pass the Spanish edition to anyone who’d rather read it that way. Past issues are at gps.press/newsletter.
Greetings:
Two undated pages are what GSFIC produced to explain how the vendor was chosen for Georgia’s $85,585,244 purchase of 524 modular prison beds. GDC, DOAS and GSFIC each said the record wasn’t theirs before GSFIC sent the pages.
The Georgia Department of Public Health closed the request twice with no exemption cited and referred a public-health question to the corrections department. It released two Legionella outbreak sheets only after a complaint to the Attorney General’s Open Government Mediation Program.
GPS published the indictment and sentence in a 2023 Phillips State Prison killing and sent a documented brief on the Legionella sheets to eleven newsrooms.
| 7 articles · 961 emails · 9 new advocates |
Significant work this period
Families outside Georgia can now join the Advocate Network
If you live outside Georgia and someone you love is held in a Georgia prison, you can now join the GPS Advocate Network through that prison. Weekly letters go to the legislators who represent the district where your loved one is held. They never name the prison or your loved one.
New research: how Georgia’s prison ombudsman works, and how other states do it
We published a Research Library collection on the Department of Corrections’ Ombudsman and Inmate Affairs Unit. It covers what the department says the office can and can’t do, the channels it tells families to use, and how independent corrections ombudsmen are set up in other states and under the federal Prison Oversight Act. Every entry quotes its source.
New research: the rules that limit family contact in Georgia prisons
We published the Department of Corrections’ own phone and visitation rules as a Research Library collection. It includes a 20-person call list that can change twice a year, a 12-person visitor list that can change only in May and November, and a 2024 federal court order that barred the department from limiting a prisoner’s email contacts to that visitor list.
The DA’s file on a 2023 Phillips State Prison killing, obtained and published
Gwinnett County’s District Attorney answered our records request on a 2023 Phillips State Prison killing. A fellow prisoner was indicted for felony murder in May 2025 and pleaded guilty in October 2025 to life without parole. No news outlet had reported it. We updated the article and published the indictment and sentence as produced.
The Warden Shall Notify: who Georgia’s prisons keep in the dark, and the law that lets them
GPS published a three-part accountability report. One part sets the 1984 Board rule that says the warden shall notify a prisoner’s family of serious injury or death against families who learned from a hospital intern, a contraband phone, other prisoners or Facebook. The report also covers the Autry and Wilcox Legionella record. It covers the statutes that make every inmate file a confidential state secret, including the auditor exception the Parole Board’s law carries and the Department of Corrections’ law does not.
GPS spoke at the House Blue-Ribbon Study Committee’s September 18 meeting in Milledgeville
The House Blue-Ribbon Study Committee on Criminal Post-Conviction Litigation met in Milledgeville on September 18 and heard from GPS for a second time. GPS’s written package, including the fifty-state survey of post-conviction procedure, was before the committee. GPS transcribed the full meeting, three hours and seventeen minutes, and holds it in its research corpus for the committee’s remaining work.
Georgia legislators heard from constituents on the four-year habeas deadline
455 active subscribers wrote to their own state legislators about the four-year deadline Georgia placed on habeas corpus petitions in 2004 and the bill that would repeal it. Each letter is written from the sender’s own situation and checked against the record before it goes.
Georgia released two prison Legionella outbreak sheets, and eleven newsrooms got the file
The Georgia Department of Public Health released two Outbreak Report summary sheets covering Legionella at a South Georgia prison. It did so after closing the request twice with no exemption cited and referring a public-health question to the corrections department. It took four weeks and a complaint to the Attorney General’s Open Government Mediation Program. The sheets are published in full alongside the GPS reporting, in English and Spanish, and a documented brief went to 11 newsrooms.
Upcoming events
Peaceful protest at Smith State Prison
Saturday, 24 October, 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., at Smith State Prison, 9676 Hwy 301 North, Glennville, GA 30427. Worldwide Chain Breakers is holding a peaceful protest outside Smith State Prison. Everyone is welcome to attend, and GPS encourages you to go. The organisers are asking for humanity, accountability, transparency, safety, humane conditions, meaningful rehabilitation, fair parole consideration and basic dignity. Ground rules: stay in lawful public areas and off prison property, don’t block roads, gates, driveways, entrances or emergency vehicles, no violence or threats, don’t confront or harass staff, visitors or law enforcement, follow lawful instructions, and if anyone tries to provoke an argument, don’t engage. Bring a sign. Families, advocates, formerly incarcerated people, faith leaders, community members and organisations are all welcome. This is one of a monthly series. The next one after this is at Macon State Prison on Saturday, 28 November.
Peaceful protest at Macon State Prison
Saturday, 28 November, 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., at Macon State Prison, 2728 Hwy 49 South, Oglethorpe, GA 31068. Worldwide Chain Breakers is holding a peaceful protest outside Macon State Prison. Everyone is welcome to attend, and GPS encourages you to go. Check the address before you set off: Macon State Prison isn’t in the city of Macon. It’s in Oglethorpe, in Macon County, about fifty miles southwest of the city. Note the date too: it’s the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend. The organisers are asking for humanity, accountability, transparency, safety, humane conditions, meaningful rehabilitation, fair parole consideration and basic dignity. Ground rules: stay in lawful public areas and off prison property, don’t block roads, gates, driveways, entrances or emergency vehicles, no violence or threats, don’t confront or harass staff, visitors or law enforcement, follow lawful instructions, and if anyone tries to provoke an argument, don’t engage. Bring a sign. Families, advocates, formerly incarcerated people, faith leaders, community members and organisations are all welcome. This is one of a monthly series.
Articles published
7 articles published, and 5 Spanish editions.
Three to a Cell: Georgia’s Commissioner Says Single Cells Cut the Violence. Four Prisons Do the Opposite.
September 26, 2026
Georgia’s corrections commissioner told senators single cells cut prison violence. At Calhoun, Dooly, Washington and Wilcox, GDC is packing more Close security men into single-man cells that hold three, at prisons built for 500 and holding up to 1,800, and the homicide rate shows it.
Five Questions for Georgia’s Next Attorney General
September 26, 2026
On August 25 we sent the same five questions to both nominees for Georgia Attorney General, on the Justice Department’s prison findings, deaths in custody, open records, oversight and habeas. Sen. Brian Strickland answered. No answers were received from Rep. Tanya Miller. His answers are here in full.
How a Family Gets Medical Information Out of a Georgia Prison
September 20, 2026
A mother asked how to get a medical power of attorney or a HIPAA release for her son in a Georgia prison. Here is the answer from GDC’s own policies and the state’s own forms: two documents he has to sign, and one rule that says the warden is supposed to call you first.
The Warden Shall Notify: Who Georgia’s Prisons Keep in the Dark, and the Law That Lets Them
September 19, 2026
A 1984 rule says the warden shall notify a prisoner’s family when he is badly hurt. Family after family since December 2024 found out instead from an intern, a contraband phone, other prisoners or Facebook. The Department told the men at Autry there was no outbreak. And the statute that makes every inmate file a state secret is missing the one sentence the Parole Board’s has.
Direct Selection: The Two-Page Note Behind Georgia’s $85,585,244 Prison Purchase
September 17, 2026
Georgia paid $85,585,244 for 524 modular prison beds. Asked how the vendor was chosen, GDC, DOAS and GSFIC each said the record wasn’t theirs. Then GSFIC sent two undated pages: it read GDC’s information request and “made a direct selection.”
10 Lessons from How to Win Friends and Influence People: Communication That Actually Works
September 13, 2026
Dale Carnegie opened his famous book with prisoners, pointing out that almost nobody in Sing Sing thought they were a bad person, and that criticism therefore almost never works on anyone. Ten lessons on persuasion, apology, and listening, plus an honest look at where charm runs out inside.
Nobody Told Them: Georgia Convicted People on Science the FBI Disowned, Then Shut the Courthouse Door
September 12, 2026
The FBI has disowned three kinds of forensic testimony and sent letters each time. Georgia’s crime lab read the 2015 hair admission, measured its own error rate at one in twenty, and told no one. The one court door that opened last year is one-shot. The other is closed by the four-year habeas deadline.
Postal Mailings this period
3 advocacy letters were mailed this period.
Emails sent on your behalf
961 emails were sent on your behalf: 952 legislative and 9 advocacy.
Open records requests
66 open records requests were made this period, to 6 different agencies or offices.
New advocates
9 new advocates joined GPS this period.
Explore GPS
Two corners of GPS worth a look:
See how Georgia legislators have actually voted on the bills that shape life inside GDC. Accountability you can check.
Interactive dashboards that turn GDC’s dense reports into plain numbers: population, deaths, parole, and drug data, updated within days of each official release.
The GPS Team, accountability@gps.press