Last updated October 4, 2026.(DS)

Long Unit: A Small Prison Inside a Systemwide Crisis

Long Unit sits in Ludowici, in Long County, a state prison for adult men that opened in 1975 and today carries a rated capacity of 212. It is a small facility by Georgia standards — the state's own population snapshot puts 204 people inside it, roughly 96 percent of capacity — and it is designated close security, though its public profile describes it as a medium-security operation that has more recently been used to hold specific populations, including officials and others whose cases draw public attention, under tighter control than many county facilities. Like other units, it relies on dormitory housing, limited programming, and outside details.

That description matters because it places Long Unit inside the structural crisis that federal investigators and GPS's own reporting have documented across the Georgia Department of Corrections: a system where the security level a facility is labeled does not match the population it holds, where officer vacancies have run at multiples of any defensible standard, and where infrastructure has been allowed to decay past its useful life. Long Unit's own record — two deaths since 2020, six consecutive top-grade food-safety inspections, and a warden appointed in mid-2025 — is thin on its face. Read against the systemwide pattern, it is a case study in how a facility can look clean on paper while sitting inside conditions the U.S. Department of Justice has called unconstitutional.

The Federal Findings That Name This Facility

The DOJ's October 2024 findings letter is the anchor document for any Georgia prison analysis, and Long Unit's public profile states that the facility has been specifically named in federal findings on unconstitutional conditions in Georgia prisons. The letter's conclusions were sweeping: that "the leadership of the Georgia Department of Corrections has lost control of its facilities," and that GDC placed "too much blame on gangs and insufficient emphasis on understaffing." Federal investigators and the Guidehouse 2024 consultant assessment independently concluded that gangs effectively run multiple facilities, controlling access to phones, showers, food, and bed assignments.

The staffing numbers behind that conclusion are stark. Officer vacancies in Georgia's prisons have run between 49.3 percent and 60 percent systemwide for multiple years, against a national standard of no more than 10 percent. The hiring pipeline cannot close the gap: acceptance rates sit under 15 percent, and 82.7 percent of new hires leave within their first year. Georgia ranks last of 50 states for correctional-officer pay. The scale of the problem was described on the record by Russell Zirkle, a former GDC assistant warden, who told GPS in a timestamped interview that Smith State Prison was among facilities running a 70–80 percent officer vacancy rate — testimony that corroborates the documented staffing records GPS has collected. Tyler Ryals, a former GDC sergeant forced out in 2024 after whistleblowing, told GPS he had personally been the only security person on the entire Telfair compound of roughly 1,250 maximum-security inmates.

Roughly 31 percent of the system's approximately 49,000 incarcerated people are validated members of 315 different security threat groups — more than double the national average. GPS treats the combination of staffing collapse and gang assumption of facility control as the integrated structural finding that explains the per-facility violence, classification, mortality, and infrastructure narratives across the state.

Classification Drift and the Medium-Security Problem

Long Unit's designation as close security while its profile describes medium-security operation is not an anomaly; it is the pattern GPS has documented as classification drift. GPS's reporting has described medium-security facilities housing close-security populations without the staffing or infrastructure to match, and has published a report titled "The Classification Crisis: How Four Medium Security Prisons Are Killing People," documenting classification drift issues.

What the record does show is a system where the label on the door and the population behind it have come apart. GPS's analysis of Georgia Department of Corrections data based on October 27, 2025 figures found medium-security prisons functioning like high-security facilities. A separate GPS investigation, "The Quiet Purge: Calhoun Edition," documented Warden Kendric Jackson transferring 87 lifers out of Calhoun State Prison in less than three months — 79 percent of them to close-security facilities — in what GPS described as a systematic population swap, with stable long-term inmates shipped to Level 5 prisons while younger short-timers arrived from those same facilities.

For a facility like Long Unit, which the public record describes as holding specific populations under tighter control than county facilities, classification drift is the mechanism by which a 212-bed prison absorbs security demands it was not built for.

Two Deaths in GPS's Registry

GPS's mortality registry records two deaths at Long Unit since January 2020, both classified as Natural/Medical. Cameron Ryan Paquette died February 13, 2024, at Long Unit; the registry lists his cause as Natural/Medical and his age at death as 43. Charles E Daniels died August 24, 2020, at Long Unit; the registry lists his cause as Natural/Medical and his age at death as 51.

Those figures are a floor, not a ceiling. GDC reports deaths roughly two months late, and GPS's registry separately holds 791 deaths from January 2015 through December 2019 drawn from the UCLA Law Behind Bars Data Project series — the Department's own cause coding obtained by open records request, not autopsy findings — which is not included in the since-2020 count. Across the system, GPS has independently tracked 1,896 deaths in GDC custody since 2020.

The absence of homicides in Long Unit's registry is a statement about GPS's records, not about the facility. It does not mean no one has been killed there; it means GPS holds no such record.

Food Safety: Six Straight A's, and What They Do Not Measure

The Georgia Department of Public Health has inspected Long Unit's food service six times since August 2023, and the facility has never scored below 96. The most recent inspection, on June 24, 2026, returned a score of 99 with one violation cited — warewashing facilities: installed, maintained, used; test strips. The prior inspection, December 23, 2025, scored a perfect 100. A June 30, 2025 inspection scored 96 with one violation for food-contact surfaces: cleaned and sanitized. Inspections on December 18, 2024, February 12, 2024, and August 9, 2023 each scored 100. All six were routine inspections conducted by the same inspector, Timmy Brinkley.

Those scores are real, and they are the public record. But GPS has documented a systemic pattern of food-service sanitation failure across GDC kitchens that DPH inspection scores systematically fail to capture. Tray-sanitizing dishwashers have been broken for sustained periods; inmate-maintenance worker accounts collected at Dooly State Prison describe thousands of roaches inside kitchen equipment; and meals have been served on visibly contaminated trays, an account corroborated by a Coastal State Prison resident and by The Marshall Project's May 16, 2026 investigation of Georgia prison food. The pattern is hidden from DPH scores 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 regulatory-capture dynamic developed in GPS's "scores without sanitation" analysis. High DPH scores at GDC facilities coexist with sustained witness reports of equipment failure and food contamination; that contradiction is the analytical center of GPS's investigation "Dunked, Stacked, and Served."

The economics underneath are equally documented. GDC spends approximately $1.69 per person per day on food as of 2024, and has 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 an adult man's nutritionally adequate diet. The state spends approximately 14 times more on medical care for incarcerated people ($432 million) than on their food. The Marshall Project independently corroborated the pattern on May 16, 2026, reporting rats in kitchens, insects in food, moldy trays, and visible malnutrition across Georgia facilities, and quoting GPS connecting chronic underfeeding to the violence pattern DOJ documented in October 2024.

Infrastructure and the Long Arc of Deferred Maintenance

Most GDC facilities are 30 to 40 or more years old, and Long Unit — opened in 1975 — is at the older end of that range. GPS has documented systemwide infrastructure failures that follow from deferred maintenance: broken cell-door locks, with a 2012 Hays audit finding roughly 42 percent non-functional and the Guidehouse 2024 assessment confirming the problem; inoperative surveillance and fire-alarm systems; mold and water failures; broken kitchen sanitization equipment; and pest infestations. The DOJ October 2024 findings, the Guidehouse assessment, and Commissioner Oliver's public statements that facilities are at "end of life" all corroborate the pattern.

GPS treats infrastructure collapse as a force multiplier for the violence, classification, gang-control, and mortality crises documented at the facility level — a broken lock is not a maintenance item when the population inside the unit is classified above the facility's design.

Leadership and Accountability

Jennifer R. Clark has served as warden of Long Unit since June 1, 2025, according to GPS's personnel records. Pamela Dennis holds the position of correctional assistant superintendent, with a start date of January 1, 2024. Both are listed as active.

Sources

This analysis draws on the Georgia Department of Public Health's food-safety inspection record for Long Unit, including six routine inspections conducted between August 2023 and June 2026; GPS's mortality registry and the underlying state death records and GDC mortality reports it compiles; GPS's personnel records for facility leadership; the U.S. Department of Justice's October 2024 findings letter on Georgia prisons; the Guidehouse 2024 consultant assessment; on-record testimony from former GDC assistant warden Russell Zirkle and former GDC sergeant Tyler Ryals, both given to GPS; and GPS's own investigative reporting on classification drift, food-service sanitation, and infrastructure failure across the Georgia Department of Corrections.