JENKINS FACILITY

Last updated August 22, 2026.(DS)

Jenkins Facility opened in 2012 as a medium-security men's prison in Millen, Jenkins County. Operated by CoreCivic under contract with the Georgia Department of Corrections, the facility has a current rated capacity of 1,186 — modestly above its original design capacity of 1,150 — and was holding 1,157 people as of the most recent GPS data, placing it at 97.6% of rated capacity. Warden Terrance Dickerson leads a command staff that includes Assistant Warden of Security Eddie Johnson, Chief of Security Latonia Brown, Chief of Unit Management Jay Maythern, Business Manager Jason Schmidt, and State Monitor Edwina Johnson. The facility's programming profile is not listed in GPS's standing record.

Mortality at a Medium-Security Facility

GPS's mortality database records 20 deaths at Jenkins Facility since tracking began on January 1, 2020 — a figure GPS treats as a floor, given that GDC reports deaths approximately two months late. The deaths cluster unevenly across years: six in 2020, five in 2021, three in 2022, none recorded in 2023, two in 2024, two in 2025, and two so far in 2026. Fifteen of the 20 deaths are classified as natural or medical, two as suicide, one as overdose, one as unknown or pending, and one as homicide.

The most recent deaths on record occurred within four days of each other in April 2026. Charles Edward Richey, 58, died on April 17, and Dustin Scott Scarbro, 27, died on April 21. Both deaths are classified in GPS's records as natural or medical. The single homicide recorded at Jenkins since 2020 stands in contrast to the facility's medium-security designation — a classification that, per GPS's systemic findings, has increasingly failed to reflect the actual risk profile of Georgia's medium-security prisons.

Food Safety and the Limits of Inspection Scores

The Georgia Department of Public Health has conducted four routine food-safety inspections at Jenkins Facility since August 2023, and the scores tell a story of inconsistency. The facility received a perfect 100 (Grade A) on August 14, 2023, and again on May 1, 2025. But between those two clean scores, a December 12, 2024 inspection returned an 87 (Grade B), with two violations cited: food-contact surfaces not properly cleaned and sanitized, and improper cooling time and temperature. The most recent inspection, on November 6, 2025, produced a 91 (Grade A) with one violation — proper hot holding temperatures.

GPS's systemic findings complicate the picture these scores present. GPS has documented a pattern of food-service sanitation failure across GDC kitchens that DPH inspection scores systematically fail to capture: tray-sanitizing dishwashers broken for sustained periods, sustained roach and rodent infestation in kitchen and serving areas, and meals served on visibly contaminated trays. The pattern is hidden from DPH scores, GPS's analysis holds, because inspections are scheduled walkthroughs that do not assess equipment under load, and because GPS has documented professional overlap between inspectors and facility staff in small-county settings. The Marshall Project's May 16, 2026 investigation of Georgia prison food independently corroborated elements of this pattern, reporting rats in kitchens, insects in food, and moldy trays across Georgia facilities.

The broader funding context underscores the stakes. GDC spends approximately $1.69 per person per day on food as of 2024, with a proposed $1.60 per day in FY27 — under 60 cents per meal — against the FDA Thrifty Food Plan estimate of roughly $10 per day for a nutritionally adequate adult male diet. The state spends approximately 14 times more on medical care for incarcerated people than on their food.

Staffing Collapse and the Medium-Security Drift

Jenkins Facility operates within a system where officer vacancies have run between 49.3% and 60% systemwide for multiple years, against a national standard of no more than 10%. At Valdosta State Prison the rate reached 80% by April 2024. The hiring pipeline cannot close the gap: acceptance rates run under 15%, and 82.7% of new hires leave in their first year. Georgia ranks last of 50 states for correctional-officer pay.

The October 2024 DOJ findings letter explicitly concluded that "the leadership of the Georgia Department of Corrections has lost control of its facilities" and faulted GDC for placing "too much blame on gangs and insufficient emphasis on understaffing." Approximately 31% of the system's roughly 49,000 incarcerated people are validated members of 315 different security threat groups — more than double the national average. DOJ and the Guidehouse 2024 consultant assessment independently concluded that gangs effectively run multiple facilities, controlling access to phones, showers, food, and bed assignments.

GPS's reporting has documented classification drift across Georgia's medium-security prisons — facilities operating at higher security levels than their designation without adequate staffing or infrastructure. The October 27, 2025 data GPS published shows medium-security prisons functioning like high-security facilities. For Jenkins, a medium-security facility holding 1,157 people at 97.6% of capacity, this drift carries direct implications: the facility's one recorded homicide, its two suicides, and its overdose death all occurred within a system where, per GPS's analysis, medium-security designations no longer reflect the populations actually housed.

Violence and Safety Concerns

GPS records show three family-safety-concern signals at Jenkins Facility across the 12-month lookback period, spanning April through July 2026, at high and moderate severity. These are aggregate signals drawn from multiple distinct sources — GPS's intelligence system suppresses single-source patterns — and they indicate recurring family concern about safety conditions at the facility.

The broader systemic context is stark. Sexual violence in GDC facilities is systemic, per the October 2024 DOJ findings letter, which concluded that sexual assault is "rampant" and that GDC does not reasonably protect incarcerated people, including LGBTI individuals, from sexual harm. Of 456 sexual-abuse allegations recorded in 2022, only 35 were substantiated — 7.7%. GDC's own consultants, PREA Auditors of America, reviewed 388 PREA investigation files in May 2022 and found that not one met the law's standards. Georgia has never submitted a PREA certification of full compliance to the U.S. Department of Justice in the law's two-decade history.

The staffing collapse and gang assumption of facility control that GPS has documented as an integrated structural finding across the system — including the April 1, 2026 coordinated Blood-on-Blood gang violence that locked down at least 12 Georgia prisons and dispatched life flights to two facilities — forms the backdrop against which Jenkins Facility's own mortality and safety records must be read. GPS has received accounts of violence at Jenkins Facility, including reports of a stabbing incident in 2026, though these remain uncorroborated by public records as of this writing.

Sources

This analysis draws on Georgia Department of Public Health food-safety inspection records; GPS's mortality database and intelligence system; GPS's systemic findings on staffing, classification drift, food-service sanitation, and sexual violence in GDC custody; the October 2024 Department of Justice findings letter; the Guidehouse 2024 consultant assessment; and reporting by The Marshall Project.