The Classification Crisis: How Four Medium Security Prisons are Killing People

Estimated reading time: 12 minutes

On November 7, 2025, Darrow Brown was walking back to his dorm at Dooly State Prison under officer escort when he accidentally bumped into another inmate. An argument erupted. Moments later, the 58-year-old was stabbed to death by a Crip gang member.

Brown was serving time for non-violent child cruelty charges. He wasn’t gang-affiliated—what inmates call a “civilian.” He was scheduled for release in 2050, meaning he had years ahead of him. But at Dooly State Prison, being a civilian doesn’t guarantee safety. Neither does restricted movement. Neither does an officer escort.

What Brown didn’t know—what most Georgians don’t know—is that Dooly State Prison, officially designated as “medium security,” secretly operates as something far more dangerous. Through an open records request, Georgia Prisoners’ Speak has obtained data revealing that Dooly houses 455 close security inmates—28.6% of its population. These are men classified by the Georgia Department of Corrections’ own system as “escape risks” with “assault histories” who “require supervision at all times.”

And Dooly isn’t alone.

The Hidden Reclassification

GPS’s analysis of GDC population data reveals that four medium security prisons have been quietly transformed into de facto close security facilities:

Wilcox State Prison: 545 close security inmates (29.7%)
Calhoun State Prison: 487 close security inmates (29.4%)
Dooly State Prison: 455 close security inmates (28.6%)
Washington State Prison: 418 close security inmates (27.7%)

By comparison, other medium security facilities in Georgia maintain close security populations between 0% and 3%. Most house none at all.

This classification mismatch isn’t just a bureaucratic quirk. It’s a recipe for violence—one that violates the GDC’s own policies, contradicts the U.S. Department of Justice’s findings about proper classification, and is getting people killed.

A Pattern of Death

The mortality data tells a grim story. According to GDC records obtained by GPS, between January 2025 and November 2025:

At the four high-close-security medium facilities:

8-10 confirmed homicides (causes of death available through September)
Including Darrow Brown’s November 7 murder
Average victim age: under 50 years old

At all other medium security facilities:

2 confirmed homicides

The four facilities with dangerously high close security populations have 4-5 times the homicide rate of properly classified medium security prisons.

But this is almost certainly an undercount. The DOJ’s October 2024 investigative report found that GDC systematically misclassifies homicides as “unknown” or “undetermined” causes of death. In June 2024 alone, GDC reported only six homicides while DOJ documentation showed at least 18 people had been murdered.

“GDC’s mortality data categorizes many deaths that obviously were homicides as having an unknown reason or unknown verified cause of death,” the DOJ wrote. “In the meantime, GDC inaccurately reports these deaths both internally and externally, and in a manner that underreports the extent of violence and homicide in GDC prisons.”

GPS’s analysis reveals the true scale of the crisis at these four facilities:

2023 Deaths:

25 total deaths
13 under age 50 (52%)
Average age at death: 47.6 years
Youngest victim: 24 years old

2024 Deaths:

33 total deaths (32% increase)
17 under age 50 (51.5%)
Average age at death: 46 years
Youngest victim: 25 years old

These aren’t natural deaths. People in their 20s, 30s, and 40s don’t die of old age. They die violently. And GDC stopped reporting causes of death in March 2024—right as the death toll was climbing.

The DOJ Investigation: All Four Facilities

The connection between improper classification and violence isn’t speculation. The Department of Justice specifically investigated all four of these facilities and found them in violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

From January 2022 through April 2023, the DOJ documented more than 1,400 violent incidents across GDC’s close- and medium-security prisons. Of these:

19.7% involved weapons
45.1% resulted in serious injury
30.5% required offsite medical treatment

The DOJ’s findings on classification failures were damning: “GDC’s classification and housing systems do not function properly. GDC does not conduct timely and accurate classification and segregation reviews… Moreover, GDC does not enforce classification housing assignments, enabling gangs and other security threat groups (STG) or other incarcerated individuals to dictate housing assignments and other aspects of daily life.”

In other words: When you pack medium security facilities with close security inmates, you lose control. Gangs fill the vacuum. Violence becomes routine. People die.

Dooly: A Case Study in Danger

Dooly State Prison exemplifies the crisis. With 28.6% of its population classified as close security, it has become one of Georgia’s deadliest facilities:

2023: 9 deaths (5 under age 50)

2024: 12 deaths (5 under age 50), including:

September 26: Zeary Davis, stabbed to death by a Blood gang member after multiple warnings to administration were ignored
2025: Multiple confirmed homicides, including:
January 9: Joshua Parrott, strangled to death
February 2: Horacio Philmore, homicide
September 12: Mass violence, 11 hospitalized (9 by ambulance, 2 by helicopter), $383,000 in medical costs
November 7: Darrow Brown, stabbed to death

The September 12 incident was particularly revealing. According to multiple witnesses in Dorm G1, officers placed inmates on the yard so a paint crew could work inside. When officers inexplicably began letting some inmates back into the building, Bloods and Goodfellas gang members “started going at it—inside the dorm, on the walk, and on the yard.”

“These weren’t fist fights. It was shanks and machetes everywhere,” one witness told GPS. “When it kicked off, officers ran. We were on our own. It was a blood bath—literally, blood was squirting out of people.”

The facility was supposedly under restricted movement—enhanced security following previous violence. It didn’t matter. With nearly 30% close security inmates and chronic understaffing, officers couldn’t maintain control.

Just a year before the September 12 riot, on September 26, 2024, another Dooly inmate was stabbed to death. Zeary Davis was killed by a Blood gang member despite repeated warnings to prison administration about imminent violence. Phone calls were made to Deputy Warden Hudson and Captain Nicholson on September 25—the day before the murder—warning that the Bloods were out of control and that gang members needed to be removed immediately. Nothing was done. Davis was murdered the next night. (GPS will publish a full investigation into this case, which involves allegations of administrative corruption and evidence destruction.)

Now on November 7, Darrow Brown became another statistic—a 58-year-old civilian killed over an accidental bump.

The Other Three

The pattern repeats across all four facilities:

Wilcox State Prison (29.7% close security):

5 deaths in 2023 (3 under age 50)
9 deaths in 2024 (4 under age 50)
3-4 confirmed homicides in 2025, including Dominique Cole (stabbed in “the hole”)

Calhoun State Prison (29.4% close security):

5 deaths in 2023 (3 under age 50)
7 deaths in 2024 (4 under age 50)
Multiple homicides documented by DOJ, including one where gang members killed a cellmate after officers failed to properly classify housing assignments

Washington State Prison (27.7% close security):

6 deaths in 2023 (2 under age 50)
5 deaths in 2024—but 80% were under age 50
2 confirmed homicides in 2025
Subject of GPS’s March 2025 investigation exposing rampant corruption, gang control, and drone-dropped contraband

Why This Creates Danger

Medium security prisons aren’t designed to house close security inmates. The difference isn’t just terminology—it’s everything:

Staffing Protocols: Close security facilities require more officers per housing unit. Medium security facilities are chronically understaffed as is—the DOJ found systemwide correctional officer vacancy rates above 50%, with the four facilities in this report running at 60-70% vacancy.

Physical Security: Close security facilities have enhanced lock systems, more surveillance, and more secure physical plants. The DOJ found that these four medium facilities have “aging and inadequately maintained facilities” with inoperable door locks that inmates easily manipulate.

Gang Separation: Proper classification keeps rival gang members apart. The DOJ found that at these facilities, “gangs control housing units, directing where other incarcerated people sleep and extorting incarcerated people and their families for money.”

Contraband Control: Close security inmates require heightened searches and monitoring. The DOJ documented that between November 2021 and August 2023, GDC recovered 27,425 weapons, 12,483 cellphones, and 2,016 illegal drug items systemwide—with these four facilities among the worst offenders.

When you place close security inmates in medium security environments, you create exactly what GPS found: facilities where violence is routine, gangs rule, and civilians like Darrow Brown don’t stand a chance.

The Questions GDC Won’t Answer

GPS has documented the problem. The DOJ has confirmed constitutional violations. The mortality data shows the deadly result. But basic questions remain unanswered:

When did this start? How long have these four facilities been operating with 28-30% close security populations?
Why these four? What criteria did GDC use to select Dooly, Wilcox, Calhoun, and Washington for this dangerous experiment?
Where’s the staffing? If these facilities are effectively operating as close security, why haven’t they received close security staffing levels and protocols?
Who approved this? Did the GDC Commissioner sign off on housing close security inmates in medium facilities at rates 10 times higher than other facilities?
What’s the plan? Does GDC intend to fix this classification mismatch, or will it continue indefinitely?

GDC has not responded to GPS’s requests for comment on these questions.

The DOJ’s Warning

The Justice Department’s findings were unequivocal: Georgia’s failure to properly classify and house inmates constitutes deliberate indifference to serious harm, in violation of the Eighth Amendment.

“Ensuring that incarcerated persons are accurately counted, and that they are where they are supposed to be, are basic tenets of sound correctional practice,” the DOJ wrote. “If people are permitted to reside in beds or cells other than where they are assigned, safety and security are compromised.”

The report specifically called out the consequences: “When staff do not control housing assignments, gangs often decide where people sleep. With such control, gangs can further increase their influence over housing units by isolating or excluding members of other gangs, non-members, and disfavored individuals.”

The result? “GDC’s classification and housing systems expose incarcerated persons to an unreasonable risk of violence.”

That unreasonable risk has a name. In 2025 alone: Joshua Parrott. Horacio Philmore. Dominique Cole. Darrow Brown. And those are just the ones we know about—the ones GDC couldn’t hide as “unknown causes.”

GPS’s Nine Fixes—Ignored

In our February 2025 article “A Simple Message for the GDC,” GPS laid out nine immediate reforms to reduce violence in Georgia prisons. At the top of the list:

“Implement intelligence-driven classification and gang separation. Establish validated gang-separation matrices that never co-house rival sets or civilians with known gang members.”

We wrote: “Separation alone isn’t enough—classification must be dynamic and behavior-based… Use behavioral intelligence to place violent offenders in Close Security Level 5, with regular re-review. The goal: keep the most dangerous actors away from civilians and prevent predictable conflicts before they turn deadly.”

The classification data GPS has now obtained proves that GDC is doing the exact opposite—concentrating close security inmates in medium security facilities at rates that guarantee violence.

This isn’t an accident. This isn’t bureaucratic drift. This is a deliberate policy choice that places thousands of people at risk every single day.

The Cost of Concealment

GDC stopped reporting causes of death in March 2024. That decision came just as the death toll at these four facilities was accelerating—and just months before the DOJ released its scathing report.

The timing suggests GDC knew exactly what the data would show: that improper classification is killing people, that the agency’s own policies are being violated, and that the constitutional violations the DOJ documented are ongoing.

By hiding causes of death, GDC shields itself from accountability. Families can’t grieve properly. Prosecutors can’t investigate effectively. The public can’t demand reform. And GPS has to piece together the truth from fragments—mortality reports without causes, incident reports that undercount violence, and witness accounts from inside the walls.

But even incomplete data reveals the pattern. When you pack medium security prisons with close security inmates, death rates soar. The four facilities with 28-30% close security populations have homicide rates 4-5 times higher than properly classified facilities.

Darrow Brown’s murder on November 7 wasn’t an anomaly. It was the predictable result of a broken system—one that GDC refuses to fix and increasingly refuses to discuss.

What Must Happen Now

The solution is straightforward:

Immediate Reclassification: GDC must explain why Dooly, Wilcox, Calhoun, and Washington house 28-30% close security inmates when other medium facilities house 0-3%. Either reclassify these inmates to appropriate facilities, or redesignate these four prisons as close security with proper staffing and protocols.
Emergency Staffing: If GDC insists on keeping close security inmates in these facilities, it must immediately increase correctional officer staffing to close security levels and implement close security operational protocols.
Transparency on Deaths: Reinstate cause of death reporting immediately. Families deserve to know how their loved ones died. The public deserves to know if GDC’s policies are killing people.
Gang Separation: Implement the intelligence-driven classification and gang separation protocols GPS outlined in February 2025 and that the DOJ recommended in October 2024.
Independent Oversight: Allow independent monitors into these four facilities with full access to incident reports, classification decisions, and mortality data.

The DOJ has already found these facilities in violation of the Constitution. The mortality data shows the deadly toll. The classification data reveals the root cause.

The only question is whether GDC will finally act—or whether more civilians like Darrow Brown will die over an accidental bump in a hallway.

Take Action Now

Georgia’s prison crisis won’t change without public pressure. Here’s what you can do:

Use ImpactJustice.AI to send powerful messages to:

Georgia legislators demanding answers about classification policies at Dooly, Wilcox, Calhoun, and Washington
The U.S. Department of Justice urging continued oversight and enforcement
Georgia media outlets asking them to investigate this classification crisis
GDC leadership demanding transparency on deaths and immediate reclassification

Share This Article: Every share increases pressure on GDC to explain why they’ve created this dangerous situation.

Contact Your Representatives: Find your Georgia legislators at openstates.org/find_your_legislator and demand they investigate.

File Official Complaints with the DOJ Civil Rights Division if you or a loved one has experienced violence at these four facilities: civilrights.justice.gov/report

Together, we can force Georgia to confront a crisis it would rather hide.

Sources and Data

Population Data: Georgia Department of Corrections, obtained via open records request, October 2025

Mortality Data: GDC mortality reports, 2023-2025, obtained via open records request

DOJ Report: U.S. Department of Justice, Investigation of Georgia Prisons, October 1, 2024 (Full Report)

Darrow Brown Details: GDC inmate records; witness accounts from Dooly State Prison inmates

September 12, 2024 Dooly Riot: Local media reports (41NBC, WGXA, 13WMAZ); witness accounts from Dooly inmates; GDC confirmation of $383,000 cost

AJC Reporting: Georgia prison homicides outpacing last year, September 8, 2025

Georgia Prisoners’ Speak is a publication dedicated to exposing conditions within Georgia’s prison system and advocating for criminal justice reform. Support our work at gps.press.

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