COFFEE CORRECTIONAL FACILITY

Analysis written on August 2, 2026.

Coffee Correctional Facility is a medium-security private prison in Nicholls, Georgia, operated by CoreCivic under contract with the Georgia Department of Corrections. The facility opened in 1998 and, according to GPS’s records, houses 2,740 people in a space designed for an original capacity of 1,524, now rated at 2,628 — an occupancy of just over 104 percent. Warden Sidney Carter has led the facility since January 2024, with a GDC state monitor, Lonnie Pritchett, assigned to the site. GPS has documented a pattern of violence, staff-driven contraband, and crowded conditions, set against a backdrop of systemic failures in Georgia’s prison system that include staffing collapse, gang dominance, and a breakdown of family notification.

Fatal Violence Between Incarcerated People

Two homicides have been publicly reported at Coffee Correctional Facility since 2020, both involving attacks by other incarcerated people. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Kendall Ja’Mal Cromer, 31, died on November 30, 2020 from stab wounds to the neck and chest; an incident report indicates four other inmates were involved. A second homicide followed on January 1, 2022, when Hendricks Riley Gunn, 42, died of blunt force injuries to the head and neck, according to the same outlet. GPS’s mortality database records 25 total deaths at the facility since the start of 2020, with the most recent being Paul Travis Williams, 57, on March 23, 2026. The causes of the vast majority of those deaths — 23 of the 25 — are listed as unknown or pending, a status emblematic of GDC’s wider opacity around custodial fatalities. Only two deaths have been definitively classified as homicides.

The December 2025 Bloods Gang Stabbings

On December 13, 2025, a series of stabbings by alleged members of the Bloods street gang left multiple inmates critically injured and requiring off-site lifesaving medical care, the Georgia Department of Corrections confirmed. The incident triggered a grand jury investigation, and on June 18, 2026, 16 inmates were indicted on charges including aggravated assault, aggravated battery, violations of the Street Gang Terrorism and Prevention Act, and riot in a penal institution. News outlets, including FOX 5 Atlanta and Yahoo News, reported that the indicted individuals were all alleged Bloods members. The episode underscores the gang dynamics that the U.S. Department of Justice has found pervade Georgia’s prisons, where approximately 31 percent of the state’s roughly 49,000 incarcerated people are validated members of 315 different security threat groups — more than double the national average. GPS’s own systemic reporting has documented how severe understaffing and classification drift enable gangs to control access to phones, showers, food, and bed assignments, effectively running entire housing units.

Staff-Led Contraband: The Gaskins Indictment

The violence crisis is compounded by staff misconduct. In January 2025, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Dacia Gaskins, a former correctional officer at Coffee Correctional Facility, was indicted for conspiring to distribute cocaine, methamphetamine, oxycodone, and marijuana as part of a drug-trafficking operation. Her case fits a wider pattern of contraband introduction by custody staff, which Georgia Prisoners’ Speak (GPS) has tied to a staffing pipeline that accepts fewer than 15 percent of applicants and sees more than 82 percent of new hires leave within their first year. With systemwide officer vacancy rates running between 49 and 60 percent and Georgia ranking last among all 50 states for correctional officer pay, facilities like Coffee are acutely vulnerable to the kind of corruption Gaskins is accused of.

Clean Inspection Scores Amid a Hidden Sanitation Crisis

According to Georgia Department of Public Health records, Coffee Correctional Facility’s kitchen has received a series of strong food-safety inspection scores: a perfect 100 in May and December 2023, May 2024, and March 2026, with a 99 in May 2025 and a 96 in September 2025, all Grade A. The lowest recent score was a 90 in November 2024, when inspectors cited two violations — improper cold holding temperatures and issues with physical facilities being maintained and clean. On their face, these scores suggest a well-run kitchen. However, GPS’s investigation “Dunked, Stacked, and Served” has exposed a systemic disconnect: DPH inspections are scheduled walkthroughs that do not assess equipment under load, and GPS has documented professional overlap between inspectors and facility staff in small-county settings — a regulatory-capture dynamic that allows high scores to coexist with sustained witness reports of broken tray-sanitizing dishwashers, roach and rodent infestation, and meals served on visibly contaminated trays. The contradiction is not unique to Coffee, but the facility’s spotless inspection record must be weighed against GPS’s systemwide finding that GDC food-service sanitation failures are routinely hidden from official scores.

Overcrowding, Classification Drift, and Family Notification Breakdowns

With 2,740 people in a facility that was originally designed for 1,524, Coffee is grappling with the same classification drift that GPS has documented across Georgia’s medium-security prisons: facilities built and staffed for minimum- or medium-security populations are absorbing large numbers of close-security individuals without the security infrastructure or staffing to manage them. This mismatch has been identified by GPS as a force multiplier for violence and mortality, and it directly shapes the conditions under which the December 2025 stabbings and the earlier homicides occurred. Compounding the breakdown in order, GPS has received multiple reports that Coffee Correctional Facility has failed to notify family members after incidents involving incarcerated people, with some relatives learning of events through other incarcerated individuals rather than official channels. These recurring notification failures erode the already thin accountability that families can expect from a privately operated prison.

Sources

This analysis draws on records from the Georgia Department of Public Health, the Georgia Department of Corrections, and reporting by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and FOX 5 Atlanta; systemic findings from Georgia Prisoners’ Speak’s investigations into classification, staffing, food service, and sexual violence; GPS’s mortality database; and family and witness accounts collected by GPS staff.