Families of incarcerated people bear a $350 billion annual burden — nearly four times the $89 billion taxpayers spend on prisons. Georgia families face commissary markups up to 161% and phone kickbacks flowing into unaudited funds.
Drug overdose deaths in Georgia prisons surged 2,350% while GDC concealed at least 44 deaths through systematic misclassification. A new GPS report documents the crisis.
Georgia spends $1.62B on corrections yet drugs flow freely through all 38 state prisons. At least 49 people died from overdoses in 2019–2022, and GDC misclassified at least 44 of those deaths.
An estimated 2,500 innocent people are imprisoned in Georgia. A GPS analysis documents 610 years of wrongful imprisonment, systemic racial disparities, and the state failures driving wrongful convictions.
New analysis traces a direct line from government-permitted lead poisoning of American children to the mass incarceration crisis — documenting how the state imprisoned millions for the neurological consequences of its own environmental failures.
The government permitted mass lead poisoning of children, then spent $80 billion/year imprisoning the victims. Evidence shows lead explains 10-30% of the crime decline — more than mass incarceration.
Georgia’s parole grants dropped 42% in five years as the corrections budget hit $1.62 billion. More than half of all 2025 releases served complete sentences. 301 people died in custody.
