Georgia Prisoners' Speak

09/26/2026

𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗰𝘂𝘀 𝗪𝗮𝗹𝗸𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝟮𝟬. 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗳𝗳 𝗮𝘁 𝗪𝗶𝗹𝗰𝗼𝘅 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗵𝗶𝗺 𝗱𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗹 𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗺𝗮𝗻. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗿𝘂𝗹𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝘁 𝗮 𝗵𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗱𝗲: 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗴𝘂𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻.

Georgia’s prison commissioner knows where these killings happen. He told state senators that half the homicides his department investigated were “roommate on roommate.” His fix, in his own words: “The single bunk thing … that’s the solution.”

At four prisons, GDC is doing the opposite.

𝘉𝘶𝘪𝘭𝘵 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘯. 𝘏𝘰𝘭𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘦. 𝘍𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘮𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘪𝘵𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘴 𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦.

Calhoun, Dooly, Washington and Wilcox were each built with 500 single cells. Wilcox now holds 1,824 men. At Calhoun, four in ten carry Close security, the classification GDC reserves for people with an “assaultive criminal or institutional history.”

In the past 12 months, 10 men were killed at those four prisons. They hold about a quarter of the men in Georgia’s medium-security prisons, and more than half of the homicides.

All four are nationally accredited, with scores near 98%.

The commissioner named the fix. His department isn’t using it. Read the records GDC sent us, and share this so more people see what their prison system is doing.

https://gps.press/three-to-a-cell-georgias-commissioner-says-single-cells-cut-the-violence-four-prisons-do-the-opposite/

GDC's commissioner says single cells cut violence. Four Georgia medium prisons triple-bunk Close security men, and their homicide rate is far higher.

09/26/2026

On August 25 we sent the same five questions to both nominees for Georgia Attorney General. They covered the Justice Department's findings on Georgia's prisons, deaths in custody, open records, independent oversight, and habeas corpus.

We told both candidates that written answers received by September 25 would be published in full, unedited and side by side.

Sen. Brian Strickland answered. No answers were received from Rep. Tanya Miller by the closing date.

Read the questions and the answers: https://gps.press/five-questions-for-georgias-next-attorney-general/

GPS doesn't support or oppose candidates for any office.

Both nominees for Georgia Attorney General got the same five questions on the state's prisons. The answers we received, in full and unedited.

09/21/2026

Arthur Wimbush was beaten to death in his cell at Phillips State Prison in April 2023. No news outlet covered it. This week the Gwinnett County District Attorney answered our records request: Edward Lominac, another prisoner, was indicted for felony murder, pleaded guilty last October, and is serving life without the possibility of parole.

That's the part of prison violence that doesn't travel. The killing gets around the compound in an hour. What happens two years later in a county courtroom doesn't.

It happens, though. Hancock State Prison, June 2025: Vershaun Smith chased Corey July across the yard and stabbed him. A jury convicted him of malice murder last month. Life without parole. Hancock again, January 2021: Javaris Compton killed his cellmate, Rashad Bolton. A jury convicted him in 2024 and the Georgia Supreme Court upheld it this year. Life without parole. Georgia State Prison: Shawn Mosley said he stabbed his cellmate, Adrian White, in self-defense. The jury didn't accept it. Life, which for a murder committed after 2006 means the Parole Board can't look at the file for thirty years.

Georgia law gives a judge three choices for murder: death, life without parole, or life. There is no fourth.

If you're inside and you've decided somebody has it coming, or you know someone who has, this is what's on the other side of that decision. The state is slow. The grand jury in the Wimbush case met twenty-five months after he died. But it came, and a sentence with a release date became a sentence without one. The man you kill was somebody's son. The man you become never goes home.

Our registry lists 263 homicides in Georgia prisons since 2020, as of September 2026. For most of them we don't yet know what happened in court. We're asking, one records request at a time, and we'll publish what comes back.

Read the updated story:

Every segregation bed at Phillips State Prison was full. Arthur Wimbush was returned to the dorm he was pulled from, and killed there 30 days from home.

09/21/2026

𝗚𝗲𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗶𝗮 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗮𝗻 𝗼𝗺𝗯𝘂𝗱𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀. 𝗛𝗮𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺?

We're asking seriously.

The GDC Ombudsman's Office exists to receive concerns from incarcerated people and their families — grievances that go unanswered, medical orders that aren't honored, property that disappears, visits that get denied. That's the job.

We have sent dozens of families to that office. We have written to it ourselves more times than we can count. Across everything we document in this system, we have never received a reply. Not a resolution, not an update, not so much as an acknowledgement that the email arrived.

We've never seen that office produce an outcome anyone could point to.

So we want to know if our experience is the whole picture or just our slice of it. Have you ever contacted the GDC Ombudsman and gotten a real response? Not a form letter. Not a referral to another number. An actual answer to what you asked.

If you have, tell us in the comments — we'd genuinely like to be wrong about this.

And if you're dealing with something right now: still send the email. [email protected]. Not because it will fix anything, but because when the time comes to show that you tried every door GDC offers, that email and the silence that follows it will both matter.

09/21/2026

𝗧𝗼𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗿𝗼𝘄 𝗚𝗣𝗦 𝗶𝘀 𝘀𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗹𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗚𝗲𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗶𝗮 𝗹𝗲𝗴𝗶𝘀𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝘁𝘄𝗼 𝗚𝗲𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗶𝗮 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗻𝘀.

In the fall of 2022, the state's own public health agency confirmed Legionella — the bacterium behind Legionnaires' disease — in the water at Autry State Prison in Pelham. Positive tests had been coming back for more than a year before anyone said so publicly.

The Department of Corrections told the public there was no outbreak and that the men inside had been kept informed. When men at Autry filed grievances about the water, the answer came back on the commissioner's letterhead saying the same thing: no outbreak. That was the message to the people actually drinking it.

In April 2023, the Department announced Autry would be emptied so aging plumbing and HVAC could be fixed. The announcement never mentioned Legionella. When some of those men were moved to Wilcox State Prison, notices went up on the warden's board in December 2023 and again in March 2024 — same bacterium, new facility's water.

We found the rest by asking the state ourselves. Records GPS obtained from the Georgia Department of Public Health under the Open Records Act show the Legionnaires' investigation at Wilcox has been open since December 2023. It is still open. The state won't say where it stands.

The men in those buildings learned about their own tap water from grievance responses and a bulletin board. The Department's own rule, on the books since 1984, requires a warden to notify next of kin when someone is seriously hurt, ill, or dies — with no deadline, no form, and no penalty for ignoring it. And whether the call was ever made sits in a file only the commissioner can release.

Meanwhile the state auditor hasn't issued a report on the Department of Corrections since December 2018. The last audit touching inmate health care, in 2007, found that of 233 deaths in 2005 and 2006, only 30 showed any evidence of a mortality review.

So we're asking legislators for one thing in the 2027 session: a prison disclosure bill. Tell the people you hold, their emergency contacts, and the public — in writing, within days — when a health agency confirms a dangerous contaminant in a prison's water, or when someone in custody is seriously hurt or dies. And give the state auditor the same access to Corrections records the law already gives it to the Parole Board's.

These prisons run in your name and on your money. A disclosure duty costs nothing. It just means the Department can't be the only one deciding who gets told.

Our letters go out tomorrow. Want one sent to your legislators in your name? Join the GPS Advocate Network:

Your loved one needs a voice in the Georgia legislature. We make it easy — sign up once and we'll advocate on your behalf every single week.

09/20/2026

Your son or daughter is sick in a Georgia prison and nobody will tell you anything. The nurse won't take your call, the counselor doesn't answer, and the warden's office says they can't discuss an inmate's medical condition. That last part is true — until he says otherwise. Federal privacy law shuts you out by default, but it also gives him the key to let you in, and Georgia gives him a second one. Four things get a family from silence to information, and three of them are pieces of paper he can sign this week.

1. The HIPAA release. He/she signs a written authorization naming you, and GDC's Legal Services office in Forsyth processes it. Once it's on file, the prison has his permission to share his medical information with you and to send you records (they charge for copies). Any authorization works if it carries six things: what information, who releases it, who receives it, why, when it expires, and his signature with the date. Or he asks medical or his counselor for the Department's own form and writes your name on it. A witness signature helps.

2. The medical power of attorney. In Georgia that's the Georgia Advance Directive for Health Care, the state's own free form (search that name). He names you as his health care agent. It needs two adult witnesses, and neither can be you. GDC policy says every prison keeps the form in the law library or medical records, and if he signs it in the medical unit the doctor has to witness it too. Sign it while he's well: the Department won't execute one if his capacity is in question.

3. Getting the forms to him. You can mail them (GDC allows up to 25 sheets with a letter). Put a stamped envelope inside so the signed copies come straight back to you, and keep copies of everything.

4. The phone call needs no form at all. Board of Corrections rule 125-4-4-.10 says that if he's severely injured or seriously ill, the warden shall notify his next of kin and keep them informed. Make sure you're the emergency contact in his file, with a current number.

If the facility stalls, write to the Health Services Administrator and the warden, then the Ombudsman ([email protected], 478-992-5358). We've written up every step with the policies linked: https://gps.press/how-a-family-gets-medical-information-out-of-a-georgia-prison/

That's GDC's own policy, not legal advice. If it goes nowhere, tell us what happened: gps.press/submit-a-report/

How a family gets medical information from a Georgia prison: the HIPAA release, the health care agent form, notaries, mail rules and the warden's duty to call.

09/19/2026

𝗝𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗲 𝗦𝗵𝗮𝗵𝗮𝗻'𝘀 𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗱 𝗪𝗮𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘁𝗼𝗻 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗲𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝗱𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝗮𝘀𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗰𝗸 𝗼𝗻 𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝘀𝗼𝗻.

He had been on life support at the Medical College of Georgia since January 12. She found out on January 24 — from a hospital intern.

A Georgia rule has said since December 4, 1984 that the warden shall notify a prisoner's next of kin when he is severely injured. Forty-one years.

𝘐𝘵 𝘴𝘦𝘵𝘴 𝘯𝘰 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘦. 𝘐𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘴 𝘯𝘰 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮. 𝘐𝘵 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘯𝘰 𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘵𝘺.

And whether anyone ever made the call is written in the inmate's file — which Georgia law classifies as a confidential state secret.

Since December 2024, at least seven families have told us how they learned.

𝘈𝘯 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘯. 𝘈 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘱𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘦. 𝘖𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘴. 𝘍𝘢𝘤𝘦𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬. 𝘍𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘮𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗵𝘀.

GDC has a seventeen-page written procedure for what it tells reporters. It has written none for what it tells a mother.

https://gps.press/the-warden-shall-notify-who-georgias-prisons-keep-in-the-dark-and-the-law-that-lets-them/

Please share this. Right now, word of mouth is the notification system.

Georgia's own rule requires prisons to notify families of serious injury and death. Seven families found out another way. The statute that lets it happen.

09/17/2026

𝗡𝗼 𝗯𝗶𝗱. 𝗡𝗼 𝘄𝗮𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿. 𝗡𝗼 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗽𝗶𝗰𝗸𝗲𝗱. 𝗔𝗻𝗱 $𝟴𝟱,𝟱𝟴𝟱,𝟮𝟰𝟰 𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗼𝗼𝗿.

On March 4, 2025, Georgia posted a request asking who could build modular prison housing. The window was eight days.

Nineteen hours and forty-seven minutes later, a company called ModCorr LLC had a state supplier profile. Created and last modified in the same minute. Never touched again.

Six weeks after the window closed, the state signed five contracts with that company.

For seven months we asked three agencies one question: show us how ModCorr was chosen. GDC said it holds no records — GSFIC handled the purchase. GSFIC said it didn't run the procurement. DOAS had no award notice, no sole-source determination, no waiver, no exception.

Then, one hour after we asked GSFIC directly, someone scanned two pages. No date. No author. No signature. The phrase doing all the work: "made a direct selection."

$89,762,212.23 actually went out the door — $4,176,968.23 more than the contracts say, across 42 invoices. Not one of the five agreements contains a contingency line. No change order has been produced.

504 beds. $160,109.61 each.

Every document, in order:
https://gps.press/direct-selection-the-two-page-note-behind-georgias-85585244-prison-purchase/

Share this one. The state is counting on nobody reading the file.

Three agencies held no record of how ModCorr won $85,585,244 in Georgia prison contracts. GSFIC's answer: two undated pages and a "direct selection."

09/15/2026

Georgia told the federal government it recorded 310 homicides in its custody between FY2020 and FY2024.

That’s more than California, Florida and Texas — combined — added together is 294.

That is not an advocacy group's estimate. That is Georgia's own filing under the Death in Custody Reporting Act. And the federal program that collects those numbers says states undercount.

We have independently tracked 1,894 deaths in Georgia prisons since 2020. In 2025 alone: 301 deaths, 51 of them homicides. In October 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice found Georgia's prisons violate the Eighth Amendment.

The state chose to take custody of every one of these people. A sentence is the punishment. Being killed is not part of it.

Tell your legislators: https://gps.press/become-an-advocate/

Share this. Most Georgians have never seen this number.

Your loved one needs a voice in the Georgia legislature. We make it easy — sign up once and we'll advocate on your behalf every single week.