The people of Georgia have the right and need to know what is going on behind prison walls in our state.

The people of Georgia have the right and need to know about corruption within the prison system.

The people of Georgia have the right and need to know why people are dying behind bars.

The lack of transparency and accountability in the state’s prison system is unacceptable and unconscionable.

The Georgia General Assembly needs to stop talking about prison reform and start doing something about it.

As we have previously stated, several things need to be changed, but at the top of the list is clear, unequivocal language in the Georgia Open Records Act that requires full and complete disclosure of all records including any and all information pertaining to inmate deaths or injuries, all complaints, prison personnel files and all documents related to disciplinary actions.

As we have previously reported at just one prison in the system — Valdosta State Prison — there were at least six inmate deaths in 2022 alone. However, prison officials did not independently report those deaths. Instead, it took a blanket open records request filed by the newspaper to even find out a single death had occurred.

So, to uncover that someone has died at the prison, you either have to know or at least suspect an inmate has died, know the time frame in which the death occurred and the prison where it happened in order to even begin the process of uncovering deaths occurring inside prison walls.

Requiring all records to be public records, obviously, is not enough but it is an extremely important part of what must be done.

The General Assembly must make regular, consistent public disclosure mandatory and easily accessible to the general public.

There is no reliable federal database tracking prison deaths in the U.S. Unbelievably, the U.S. Department of Justice said it stopped trying to maintain such records because states under reported incarcerated deaths.

The fact that the DOJ knew the deaths were being under reported should have resulted in greater scrutiny, not in eliminating the reporting mechanism.

People die behind bars from many causes including poor health, suicide, homicide and the always nebulous “undetermined” reasons.

Prison officials in our state have said they are underfunded. The state allocated additional monies last year which should mean more guards, better pay and improved facilities. While that is good news, it does not fix the basic and fundamental problem of just how opaque our prison system has become.

The General Assembly must take up this issue with urgency — people are dying.