Tip briefs from our investigations, designed for journalists covering criminal justice and corrections in Georgia.
Georgia Department of Corrections is building OWL (Overwatch & Logistic Unit Command Center), an unprecedented real-time surveillance system integrating cameras, cell phone interdiction, radar, and health records across all state…
The Georgia Department of Corrections published two contradictory official documents in January 2026: one stating 301 people died while serving state sentences in 2025, the other naming only 295 deceased…
Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Nels Peterson admitted on March 4, 2026, that the state's post-conviction legal system is 'a mess' created by decades of court decisions, but his acknowledgment…
Gang violence has killed over 100 people in Georgia prisons in 2024 alone, with the entire system on lockdown for weeks following a January 11 massacre at Washington State Prison…
Wendy Jackson jumped from running a 235-bed minimum-security transitional center to leading Georgia's most troubled women's prison, where at least 22 women died under a single doctor's care and gang…
Shift rosters obtained through open records show Washington State Prison had only five to six correctional officers assigned to cover 69 designated security posts on the days surrounding Georgia's deadliest…
Between FY 2022 and FY 2026, Georgia added $700 million to its corrections budget—the fastest spending growth in agency history—yet prison homicides exploded from single digits to 100 deaths in…
The 2011 Supreme Court case Brown v. Plata established that federal courts must intervene when overcrowding is the primary cause of constitutional violations in prisons. With the DOJ's civil rights…
Governor Brian Kemp commissioned independent investigations that found Georgia's prisons operating at less than 50% staffing with constitutional violations, then invested over $600 million across two fiscal years. One year…
Mass incarceration emerged from documented federal policy decisions during the War on Drugs era, including tolerance of CIA-linked drug trafficking abroad while criminalizing affected communities at home. Georgia's adoption of…