HANCOCK STATE PRISON

Analysis written on July 12, 2026.

Hancock State Prison, opened in 1991 in rural Hancock County, is a close-security institution that holds some of Georgia’s highest-risk prisoners. Originally designed for 750 people, it now houses 1,174—a 57% overload against its original specifications—within aging facilities that include dormitories, segregation units, and a metal annex. Chronic understaffing, with correctional officer vacancies exceeding 70%, left just 49 officers to manage the entire facility as of October 2024. The result, documented by news outlets, federal investigators, and Georgia Prisoners’ Speak (GPS), has been a cascade of deadly violence, gang dominance, and institutional failures that have cost the state millions in wrongful-death settlements.

A Staffing Catastrophe: “Emergency Levels” and Unchecked Violence

In March 2025, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Hancock State Prison had one of the highest correctional officer vacancy rates in the Georgia Department of Corrections, at 73.5 percent—only 49 officers remained on staff for a population of more than 1,100. That same investigation found that consultants had declared staffing at 20 of Georgia’s 34 prisons to be at “emergency levels,” making it impossible to maintain basic security protocols. Broken cell locks allow prisoners to roam and gang members to intimidate others, the AJC noted.

The U.S. Department of Justice’s October 2024 findings letter bluntly stated that GDC leadership had “lost control of its facilities” and placed too much blame on gangs while understaffing was the root cause. GPS has documented that officer vacancies have run between 49 and 60 percent systemwide for years, with more than 80 percent of new hires leaving in their first 12 months. At Hancock, the undersized security force’s inability to monitor housing units, conduct rounds, and respond to emergencies was a precursor to the violence that would follow.

A Parade of Homicides: From Stabbings to Beatings

The death toll at Hancock is stark. GPS’s mortality database records 26 deaths at the facility since tracking began; among the most recent are Jacorey Pearson (April 2026), Jerrod Johnson (February 2026), Jaylin Bell (February 2026), and Steven Wood (January 2026), all classified under categories consistent with violence. Public records and news reports provide a fuller picture of a prison where fatal assaults are routine.

In January 2021, Rashad Bolton, 29, was stabbed to death. His parents filed a lawsuit, and the state ultimately paid a $437,500 liability settlement. The next month, Dwayne Zackery Jr., 22, died of a stab wound to the chest inflicted by his cellmate. In March 2020, Cesar Arnold Pastrana Morales, 33, was killed with a chest wound; five other inmates were involved.

By 2022, the violence escalated. Charles “Tristen” James McKee, a 24-year-old who identified as LGBTQ, pleaded with staff to move him from a dorm where gang members were hostile toward him. The day before he was killed, he repeated those requests, to no avail. On May 23, 2022, multiple gang members beat and stabbed him 13 times in the back and head; he tried to escape by jumping through stair railings but was pursued and finished off. The DOJ’s investigation of the incident detailed that another prisoner who tried to intervene was seriously wounded. The state settled the resulting lawsuit for $424,710. Later that year, Terry Lee Bishop, 49, was beaten to death by another prisoner, and Norman Samples, 59, died of blunt force injuries.

In 2023, two more men were slain: Roland Lamont Phillips, 33, suffered 11 puncture wounds and one to the neck; a murder warrant was served on his cellmate. Francisco Zaldivar Melgar-Saldivar, 26, was strangled; a claim filed against the state alleged he was denied appropriate medical care after being attacked. The following year, Travon Walthour, 29, was killed with four other prisoners involved, according to GDC incident reports.

The pace did not slow in 2025. In January, gang-related violence left William Holeman, 34, and Prince Porter, 38, dead in the same dorm a few feet apart; a third prisoner was hospitalized. The coroner leaned toward homicide in at least one case, the AJC reported. Then, on January 12, 2026, GPS documented that five inmates were stabbed with shanks at Hancock; two were airlifted to hospitals. Less than two weeks later, Steven Wood, a lifer, was beaten to death by his cellmate. In February, Jaylin Bell died after an altercation with his roommate, and Jerrod Johnson was killed. In April, Jacorey Pearson became the fourth recorded death of 2026.

Failure to Protect: Classification, Custody, and the Disregard of Danger

The McKee case epitomizes a pattern of protective-custody failures. A lawsuit alleged that officials knowingly placed McKee in a dorm with gang members hostile to LGBTQ inmates and ignored his repeated pleas for safety. But the facility’s record of exposing vulnerable people to lethal risk is even broader.

In 2019, Amanuel Selassie Geberyesus expressed suicidal thoughts; a counselor advised against placing him in a regular cell, but he was housed in one anyway. He hanged himself. The state would pay $600,000 to settle the resulting claim—the largest of any Hancock-related liability payout, according to GPS analysis of Georgia’s open-records settlement ledger.

Moreover, GPS itself has documented what it calls “classification drift”: the systemic transfer of inmates into security levels that are inappropriate for their risk profiles or needs. In March 2026, GPS reported that John Morgan Coleman, an 82-year-old lifer, had been transferred from a medium-security prison to close-security Hancock—a Level 5 facility. Such a move forces an elderly man into a violent environment where, as the DOJ found, staff cannot protect him from assault.

The State’s Bill for Death and Neglect

The state of Georgia has paid out at least $1.48 million in legal settlements tied to deaths and injuries at Hancock State Prison, according to the Georgia Department of Administrative Services’ risk management ledger. In addition to the large McKee, Bolton, and Selassie settlements, smaller payouts include $13,800 for Freedie Barnes (2016), $2,000 for Michael Bolick (2015), and $250 for Rico Sterling (2016). Each settlement reflects an admission that the state’s agents failed in their duty of care.

Infrastructure, Food, and the Hidden Conditions of Confinement

Hancock’s physical plant, like many Georgia prisons, is decaying. The facility’s description in GPS records notes “inoperable locks” and chronic deferred maintenance. The October 2024 DOJ findings, along with a 2024 consultant’s assessment, confirmed that broken cell-door locks are widespread and enable the very gang intimidation and roaming that drive violence.

Conditions inside the annex have drawn particular concern. Multiple family members have described to GPS a metal building without insulation or proper ventilation, where interior temperatures reportedly rise above 105°F. One family account alleges that the HVAC system was turned on for an inspection and then immediately shut off afterward.

On paper, food safety at Hancock appears exemplary: Georgia Department of Public Health inspections between 2023 and 2025 scored the kitchen a perfect 100 on six of ten visits, with only a couple of minor violations (such as personal cleanliness) bringing one score to 96 and another to 93—all A grades. However, GPS’s systemic investigation of GDC kitchens, titled “Dunked, Stacked, and Served,” has found that high DPH scores frequently coexist with broken tray-sanitizing equipment, pest infestations, and food contamination that scheduled walkthrough inspections do not capture. The Marshall Project corroborated these findings in a May 2026 report documenting rats, insects, and mold in Georgia prison kitchens. Thus, the reassuring numbers at Hancock must be viewed with caution.

Gang Wars and a Statewide Crisis

Georgia’s prison homicide rate is nearly eight times the national average, a DOJ investigation found. GPS has independently tracked 1,847 deaths in GDC custody since 2020, and 333 were recorded in 2024 alone. Hancock sits at the intersection of a metastasizing gang conflict. The January 12, 2026 mass stabbing at the prison was part of a statewide Blood-on-Blood factional war between ROLACC and G-Shine sets that GPS reported on extensively. That same day, four men were killed at Washington State Prison, and 13 other facilities were eventually locked down. In April 2026, coordinated gang violence erupted again, triggering a systemwide lockdown.

GPS has documented 315 validated security threat groups with 15,200 members—31 percent of the incarcerated population. Yet Georgia has no gang-separation strategy. The DOJ specifically faulted GDC for not protecting inmates from gang predation. At Hancock, where one corrections officer was convicted in 2019 for running an eight-facility drug distribution ring that involved methamphetamine and ecstasy hidden in water bottles, the illicit economy further fuels the violence. GPS’s internal records show multiple inmate-on-inmate assault allegations at Hancock in the first half of 2026, some of which reached the U.S. Department of Justice.

Unanswered Accountability

The GDC Office of Professional Standards routinely opens investigations into each in-custody death—standard procedure, as the department describes them. Yet those internal reviews rarely produce public accountability. A GPS analysis of 19 killings at Ware State Prison found that none resulted in charges, and a similar pattern of unprosecuted murder is visible at Hancock. Only in a handful of cases, such as the 2023 Phillips homicide, has a murder warrant been issued.

The survivors and families left behind now rely on civil lawsuits to force disclosure. The state has yet to implement the gang-separation measures that reduced violence by 50 percent in Arizona, as GPS noted; and despite a $600 million budget proposal from Governor Brian Kemp to address staffing and repairs, the vacancy rate remains catastrophic.

Sources

This analysis draws on reporting from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 41NBC, and Georgia Prisoners’ Speak; public Georgia Department of Public Health food-safety inspection reports; GDC incident data and mortality records; open-records settlement data from the Georgia Department of Administrative Services; and the U.S. Department of Justice’s October 2024 findings letter. GPS has also collected accounts from family members and incarcerated people at the facility that inform the contextual understanding of conditions, though individual family and witness statements are not quoted directly.