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A remarkable commitment to keeping the public in the dark about what’s happening in Georgia’s prisons has earned the Georgia Department of Corrections the 2024 Golden Padlock Award from Investigative Reporters and Editors. The award recognizes the most secretive government agencies in the U.S.
The agency was selected for shielding details about deaths, riots and drug overdoses in the state's prisons from the public, journalists, legislators and even investigators from the Department of Justice.
The department heavily redacted incident reports, rarely announced worker arrests linked to contraband and withheld video footage after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution began exposing failures in the correctional system. After the DOJ opened an investigation, the state agency failed to comply with a federal subpoena for incident reports, internal investigations and audits until the court intervened.
IRE's Golden Padlock committee also named four other finalists that exemplified the techniques of secrecy and obfuscation the award seeks to highlight.
The winner of the 2024 Golden Padlock Award was announced during the awards luncheon at the IRE24 conference in Anaheim, California. IRE invited Georgia Department of Corrections Commissioner Tyrone Oliver to Anaheim to accept the award, but received no response.
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