AUGUSTA TRANSITIONAL CENTER
Facility Information
- Current Population
- 228
- Active Lifers
- 20 (8.8% of population) · Aug 2026 GDC report
- Address
- 601 Taylor Street, Augusta, GA 30901
- Phone
- (706) 721-1650
- Fax
- (706) 721-1798
- County
- Richmond County
- Operator
- GDC (Georgia Dept. of Corrections)
Leadership & Accountability (as of 2025 records)
Officials currently holding positional authority at this facility, with deaths attributed to GPS-tracked records during their leadership tenure. Inclusion reflects role-based accountability, not legal findings of personal culpability. Death counts shown as facility / career.
| Role | Name | Since | Deaths this facility / career |
|---|---|---|---|
| CORRECTIONAL SUPERINTENDENT (facility lead) | Harrison, Eugenia Darlene | 2020-01-01 | — / — |
| DEPUTY WARDEN (facility deputy) | Mahoney, Tamikia Nicole | 2025-01-01 | — / 26 |
| Assistant Superintendent (facility deputy) | Cliett, Asia Deon | 2024-10-16 | — / — |
About
Augusta Transitional Center, a reentry facility on the ASMP complex, houses 228 people. Two inmates escaped in 2020, and GPS has recorded one death in custody since 2020 amid systemic staffing and infrastructure failures across Georgia's prisons.
Mortality Statistics
1 deaths documented at this facility from 2020 to present.
Deaths by Year
- 2026: 0
- 2025: 0
- 2024: 1
- 2023: 0
- 2022: 0
- 2021: 0
- 2020: 0
County Public Health Department
Food service and sanitation at AUGUSTA TRANSITIONAL CENTER fall under the jurisdiction of the Richmond County Environmental Health Department. Incarcerated people cannot choose where they eat — public health inspectors carry an elevated responsibility to hold this kitchen to the same standards applied to any restaurant.
Contact
- Title
- EH Specialist
- Name
- Derek Buzhardt
- Address
-
1916 North Leg Road, Bldg K
Augusta, GA 30909 - Phone
- (706) 667-4234
- Derek.Buzhardt@dph.ga.gov
- Website
- Visit department website →
Why this matters
GPS has documented black mold on chow-hall ceilings, cold and contaminated trays, spoiled milk, and pest contamination at Georgia prisons. The Department of Justice's 2024 report confirmed deaths from dehydration and untreated diabetes tied to food and water deprivation. Advance-notice inspections let facilities stage temporary fixes that disappear once inspectors leave.
Unannounced inspections by the county health department are one of the few outside checks on kitchen conditions behind the fence.
How you can help
Write to the county inspector and request an unannounced inspection of the kitchen and food service operation at this facility. A short, respectful letter citing Georgia food-safety regulations is more powerful than you think — inspectors respond to public concern.
Sample Letter
This is the letter Georgia Prisoners' Speak mailed to all county environmental health inspectors responsible for GDC facilities. Feel free to adapt it.
August 13, 2026
RE: Request for Unannounced Public Health Inspection of Food Service Operations at AUGUSTA TRANSITIONAL CENTER
Dear Derek Buzhardt,
I am writing to respectfully request that your office conduct a thorough, unannounced inspection of food service and sanitation practices at AUGUSTA TRANSITIONAL CENTER, located in Richmond County.
Documented concerns
Georgia Prisoners' Speak, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit investigative newsroom, has published extensive investigative reporting on food safety and nutrition failures across Georgia's prison system, including:
- Dangerous sanitation conditions — black mold on chow hall ceilings and air vents, contaminated food trays, and spoiled milk served to inmates.
- Severe nutritional deficiency — roughly 60 cents per meal; inmates receive only 40% of required protein and less than one serving of vegetables per day.
- Preventable deaths — the U.S. Department of Justice's 2024 report confirmed deaths from dehydration, renal failure, and untreated diabetes following food and water deprivation.
- Staged compliance — advance-notice inspections allow facilities to stage temporary improvements, then revert once inspectors leave.
Firsthand testimony
In Surviving on Scraps: Ten Years of Prison Food in Georgia, a person who has spent more than ten years in GDC custody describes no functional dishwashing sanitation, chronic mold on food trays, and roaches found on the undersides of trays at intake facilities. Full account: gps.press/surviving-on-scraps-ten-years-of-prison-food-in-georgia.
Specific requests
- Conduct an unannounced inspection of the kitchen and food service operations at this facility, with particular attention to dishwashing equipment, tray sanitation procedures, and food storage conditions.
- Evaluate compliance with applicable Georgia food safety regulations, including O.C.G.A. § 26-2-370 and the Georgia Food Service Rules and Regulations (Chapter 511-6-1).
- Verify permit status and confirm whether the facility is subject to the same inspection schedule as other institutional food service establishments in the county.
- Make inspection results available to the public, as permitted under Georgia's Open Records Act (O.C.G.A. § 50-18-70).
Incarcerated individuals cannot advocate for their own health and safety in the way a restaurant patron can — they cannot choose to eat elsewhere. This places an elevated responsibility on public health officials to ensure these facilities meet the same sanitation standards applied to any food service establishment.
Thank you for your attention to this important public health matter.
Sincerely,
[Your name]
Food Safety Inspections
No inspection records are on file with the Georgia Department of Public Health for this facility. GPS has filed an open records request asking where these records are maintained.
What the score doesn't measure. DPH grades kitchen compliance on inspection day — food storage, temperatures, pest control. It does not grade whether today's trays are clean. GPS reporting has found broken dishwashers at most Georgia state prisons we've documented; trays go out wet, stacked, and visibly moldy — including at facilities with recent scores near 100.
Who inspects. Most Georgia state prisons sit in rural counties — often with fewer than 20,000 people, several with fewer than 10,000. The environmental health inspector lives in that community and often knows the kitchen staff personally. Rural inspection regimes don't have the structural independence you'd expect in a city-sized health department. Read the scores accordingly.
Read the investigation: “Dunked, Stacked and Served: Why Georgia Prison Trays Are Making People Sick”
Analysis written on August 9, 2026.
Augusta Transitional Center is a GDC-operated reentry facility located on the grounds of Augusta State Medical Prison (ASMP), with a population of 228 people under Warden Eugenia Harrison. Assistant Superintendent Asia Deon Cliett and Chief of Security Stacy Leslie oversee operations. The facility, designed to prepare individuals nearing release for community reintegration, has seen two high-profile escapes and a death in custody since 2020, set against the backdrop of systemic failures documented across Georgia's prison system.
Security Lapses and Two Escapes
On June 8, 2020, inmate James Moses Hardy escaped from Augusta Transitional Center. He was arrested eight days later, on June 16, GDC announced. Less than two months later, on August 3, 2020, 40-year-old Christopher Craig escaped around 5 p.m., GDC reported. Craig was serving a six-year sentence for methamphetamine possession with intent to distribute and had prior convictions for aggravated assault, escape, kidnapping, and armed robbery, CBS News reported. The outlet noted that Craig’s escape marked at least the second from the facility since June, raising questions about perimeter security and supervision at a center intended for gradual reintegration. GDC has not publicly detailed the circumstances of either escape beyond confirming the events and subsequent arrests, leaving unclear whether understaffing — a known systemic crisis — contributed to these breaches.
One Death, Unresolved Cause
GPS’s independently maintained mortality database records a single death at Augusta Transitional Center since 2020, with the cause categorized as unknown or pending. That solitary death sits within a much larger landscape: GPS has tracked 1,860 deaths in GDC custody since 2020, a toll that has drawn condemnation from the Department of Justice and human rights monitors. The lack of a publicly reported cause for the one death here prevents any assessment of whether it reflects the same patterns of neglect, violence, or inadequate medical care documented elsewhere in the system.
How Systemic Failures Touch a Reentry Center
As a GDC facility, Augusta Transitional Center is subject to the same departmental budget and staffing constraints that have been documented as catalysts for violence, neglect, and constitutional violations in the state’s higher-security prisons. GPS’s investigative reporting has established a series of systemic findings that apply across the system.
Officer vacancies have ranged from 49.3% to 60% statewide—against a national standard of no more than 10%—and the Department of Justice’s October 2024 findings letter directly faulted GDC for placing “too much blame on gangs and insufficient emphasis on understaffing.” While reentry centers are lower-security, the same depleted workforce and retention crisis (82.7% of new hires leave in their first year) affect all facilities. The physical infrastructure is also decaying: most GDC prisons are 30–40+ years old with documented deferred maintenance producing broken locks, inoperative fire alarms, and pest infestations, as confirmed by a 2012 Hays audit and a 2024 Guidehouse assessment.
On the food side, GPS has documented that GDC spends about $1.69 per person per day on meals—under 60 cents per meal—far below the FDA Thrifty Food Plan estimate of roughly $10 per day. The Marshall Project independently corroborated the pattern, reporting rats in kitchens, insects in food, and visible malnutrition across Georgia facilities in May 2026. Meanwhile, sexual violence is systemic: the DOJ found it “rampant,” with only 7.7% of 456 allegations substantiated in 2022 and Georgia never having submitted a PREA certification of full compliance in the law’s two-decade history.
GPS has not published specific reports linking these systemic conditions to Augusta Transitional Center, but the facility operates within the same administrative framework that has produced those outcomes. For residents preparing for release, the safety, nutrition, and stability that reintegration demands depend on a functional state apparatus that, by every documented measure, is failing.
Leadership and Oversight
Warden Eugenia Harrison is the facility superintendent. Assistant Superintendent Asia Deon Cliett, who started in October 2024, serves as the facility deputy and is directly accountable for day-to-day conditions. Chief of Security Stacy Leslie heads institutional safety. All three hold positions within a department that the DOJ concluded has lost control of its facilities.
Sources
This analysis draws on GDC public communications and CBS News coverage of the 2020 escapes; GPS’s systemic findings on staffing, infrastructure, food, and sexual violence, corroborated by the U.S. Department of Justice’s October 2024 findings, the Guidehouse 2024 assessment, and The Marshall Project’s May 2026 investigation; and GPS’s facility database and independently tracked mortality records. GPS’s systemic findings are editorial conclusions supported by multiple streams of evidence across its reporting.