Greetings:
The State Board of Pardons and Paroles asked a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit brought for a woman who has spent more than four decades in prison. The judge refused, finding her attorneys had plausibly raised claims about how the board handles parole for people serving life for crimes committed as juveniles.
The five board members vote on a file they don’t build. Staff compute the crime severity level, the risk score and the case summary. One internal unit audits that work, and it publishes no results.
In public Facebook posts about Georgia’s prisons, families and advocates raised parole more than any other subject. They asked for written reasons when someone is denied, standardized public criteria, and face-to-face hearings instead of video. One post asked: “Where is the transparency in parole decisions?”
| 9 articles · 75 stories to legislators · 1,022 emails · 4 new advocates |
In the news
August 2026 death report
The Department of Corrections released its August 2026 death report: 21 people died in its custody that month. See the Georgia prison death registry
Federal sentences for a jury-duty phone scam run from prison
FOX 5 Atlanta reported that two men held in Georgia prisons, who officials say used contraband cellphones to trick people out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, were sentenced in federal court in Albany. One got 200 months and the other 120 months, each followed by three years of supervised release, and the sentences run consecutively. Read more
Legislative study looks at Georgia’s state-appointed lawyers
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on a legislative study of the lawyers Georgia appoints for people who can’t afford one. The story opens with a man serving a life sentence whose appeal the Georgia Supreme Court rejected this year. The court also admonished his state-appointed lawyer for errors in the case. Read more
Prison-system employee charged after Central State Prison arrest
13WMAZ reported that a Department of Corrections accounting technician was arrested and charged with having sexual relations with a man held at Central State Prison. According to warrants, as reported by 13WMAZ, the employee is also accused of illegally giving him food. These are charges, not findings of guilt. Read more
Federal judge lets parole lawsuit go forward
The AJC reported that a federal judge refused the State Board of Pardons and Paroles’ request to throw out a lawsuit brought for a woman who has been in prison for more than four decades and has been denied parole five times. The judge found her attorneys had plausibly raised claims about how the board handles parole for people serving life for crimes committed as juveniles. Read more
New from GPS
Search what people on Facebook are saying about Georgia’s prisons
GPS’s public data tools now let you search public Facebook posts and comments about Georgia’s prisons. Each one is labeled as a first-hand account, an opinion, an idea for change or news retold. Names of people in custody are removed. Try it at data.gps.press
GPS Reports: short news videos on Facebook and Instagram
We started GPS Reports, short videos built from our published articles with the source documents shown on screen. The first two cover the padlocks fire inspectors found on cell doors at Washington State Prison, and how a family gets medical information out of a Georgia prison. Watch
Padlocks on cell doors: research and a records request
On September 24 the State Fire Marshal cited padlocks and slide bolts on cell doors in four housing units at Washington State Prison. We asked the Department of Corrections for its inspection records, its response to the citation and its lock-repair records. We also published a research collection of 118 sourced data points on what Georgia has budgeted for cell-door locking systems since 2010, the contracts, and the audits and official statements showing the locks failing. Read the collection
Lighthouse tablet app adds My Notes, a private journal
Version 3.1.1 of the Lighthouse tablet app lets people keep dated notes on their tablet, locked with a passphrase only they know. A button records each meal and shows the time since the last one. Articles now download in English by default, with Spanish available in Settings, so syncing uses less data. Get the app
Research collection on felony murder in Georgia
What the state counts, what the Georgia Code says, and how Florida’s Jewell ruling bears on it. Each entry quotes the exact passage from its source, and searches that turned up nothing are listed too. Read the collection
See how each prison classifies the people held there
Every GPS facility page now has a Security Classification section. It shows the Department’s own counts of people classified close, medium and minimum security at that prison, its Tier II, Tier III and STEP beds with how many are occupied, and the date of the latest figures. The counts come from records the Department produced to GPS. See an example
Tier segregation and STEP: two research collections
The Department produced its prison-by-prison STEP counts to GPS through a records request on October 2: 119 beds at four prisons, 96 of them occupied at the time. A companion collection gathers what news reports and court records have said about Tier and STEP, each entry quoting its source with the address and the date we read it. Read the STEP collection or the press and courts collection
Upcoming events
Peaceful protest at Smith State Prison
Saturday, 24 October (next week), 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Smith State Prison, 9676 Hwy 301 North, Glennville, GA 30427
Worldwide Chain Breakers is holding a peaceful protest outside Smith State Prison, and the public is welcome. GPS encourages you to go. Organizers are asking for humane conditions, safety, accountability, transparency, meaningful rehabilitation, fair parole consideration and basic dignity for the people held there. Bring a sign. Their 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 don’t engage if anyone tries to provoke an argument. Families, advocates, formerly incarcerated people, faith leaders, community members and organizations are all welcome.
Peaceful protest at Macon State Prison
Saturday, 28 November, 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Macon State Prison, 2728 Hwy 49 South, Oglethorpe, GA 31068
The next protest in Worldwide Chain Breakers’ monthly series, a different prison each month. Everyone is welcome to attend, with the same ground rules. 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.
What people are saying
These are people’s own accounts and views from public Facebook posts, which GPS has not verified.
Parole. Parole came up more than anything else. Families and advocates in the Ga. Prisons Exposed Facebook group posted again and again about people who have served decades and keep receiving set-offs. They called for written reasons for denials, standardized public criteria, and face-to-face hearings instead of video. One post asked: “Where is the transparency in parole decisions?”
Safety and conditions inside. Several people wrote about drugs, weapons, gangs and understaffing. One poster said they had received reports from three prisons that officers aren’t consistently doing security rounds or counts. A first-hand account in the group described a lockdown at Ware State Prison in heat of 108°F, saying “they refuse you showers at this facility.”
Families on the outside. A family member wrote that a visit at Coastal State Prison was canceled for a dorm lockdown and no one called back to say it was back on. Others wrote about what a sentence does to mothers and to the brothers and sisters left at home. Others shared numbers to call when a loved one needs help.
Legislators are writing back
Legislators replied 28 times this period to the letters advocates sent through the Advocacy Network. The letters are reaching real offices.
Join the GPS Advocacy Network
Signing up takes about two minutes. GPS finds your own state legislators, writes a personalized letter on a pressing prison issue each week, sends it to them, and sends you a copy of every letter. This period that meant 1,018 letters to legislators on advocates’ behalf, and 4 people joined.
The Georgia General Assembly’s 2027 session opens in January. The bills on prison conditions, parole and sentencing it will take up are being written now, and legislators answer to the voters in their own districts. More advocates means more of these letters on their desks before the session starts.
Become an advocate at gps.press/become-an-advocate
Please forward this email to family and friends who care about someone inside, and send them the sign-up link.
Articles published
9 articles published, and 8 Spanish editions.
Prison Phone Scams Are Adding Years to Georgia Sentences
October 17
Two men at Calhoun State Prison added 26 years and 8 months of federal time for a jury-duty phone scam, on top of their Georgia sentences. Here’s how the time adds up.
Georgia Can’t Block Its Way Out of Prison Phone Scams. Let the Phones In, and Listen.
October 12
GPS argues for registered, monitored phones inside, with lawyers excluded, backed by the state’s own arrest reports and the DOJ’s findings.
Her Charges Don’t Define Her
October 9
A mother writes about her daughter at McRae Women’s Facility: no programs, staff shortages and mail delays, and a parole date of 2031.
An Email Trail as the Day Is Long
October 9
Her fiancé has stage IV cancer and blood clots. When they spoke up about his medication, she says retaliation followed: false reports, denied medication and cut communication.
Georgia Keeps Buying Cell Locks. Its Prisons Keep Using Padlocks.
October 9
Fire inspectors found padlocks and slide bolts on cell doors at Washington State Prison in September. This year the state set aside another $84,596,895 for locks.
Not Their Mistakes
October 9
A mother describes her daughter’s transfer from Whitworth to McRae Women’s Facility, where she says women are denied programs and mental health support.
Forgetting Is Not Murder
October 7
A Florida appeals court said a nanny who forgot a sleeping baby in her car did not commit murder. Georgia charges grieving parents the same way.
Who Builds the File Five Members Vote On? Georgia’s Parole Guidelines and the One Unit That Checks Them
October 6
Staff compute the crime severity level, risk score and case summary the Board votes on. One internal unit audits that work and publishes no results.
“He’s on Tier”: What Georgia’s Prison Segregation System Is and How It Works
October 4
How Tier I, Tier II, the Special Management Unit and STEP work under GDC’s own policies, how people get in and out, and the bed counts GDC gave GPS.
Postal Mailings this period
1 advocacy letter (sent certified).
We put 75 firsthand stories from inside directly into Georgia legislators’ hands this period, real accounts mailed as Tell My Story postcards. Each carries a pull-quote and a QR code to the full story. Have a story that belongs in a legislator’s hands? Share it at https://gps.press/tellmystory.
Emails sent on your behalf
1,022 emails in total.
Legislative: 1,018
Advocacy: 4
Open records requests
53 open records requests were made this period, to 15 different agencies and offices.
Explore GPS
Two corners of GPS worth a look:
GPS’s reform agenda for the 2027 Georgia legislature: model bills, plus the statutes lawmakers already passed but don’t enforce. See the agenda
Ask a question in plain English, like “what is the habeas deadline”, and get the exact page and section that answers it, across everything GPS has published. Free, no login, in English and Spanish. Start searching
The GPS Team, accountability@gps.press