McRAE WOMEN’S FACILITY
Facility Information
- Original Design Capacity
- 1,978
- Bed Capacity
- 2,275 beds
- Current Population
- 1,183
- Active Lifers
- 160 (13.5% of population) · Oct 2026 GDC report
- Life Without Parole
- 42 (3.6%)
- Address
- 112 Jim Hammock Drive, McRae-Helena, GA 31005
- Phone
- (229) 212-5100
- Fax
- (229) 212-5202
- Mailing Address
- P.O. Box 55478, McRae-Helena, GA 31005
- County
- Telfair County
- Opened
- 2000
- Operator
- GDC (Georgia Dept. of Corrections)
Security Classification
Last updated: October 2, 2026
85 of the 1,110 people held here are classified Close security (7.7%), as of September 23, 2026.
| Security level | People | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Close | 85 | 7.7% |
| Medium | 599 | 54.0% |
| Minimum | 424 | 38.2% |
| Standard | 1 | 0.1% |
| Not recorded | 1 | 0.1% |
| Total | 1,110 |
Earlier count (undated table, produced October 22, 2025): 47 of 660 Close (7.1%).
Restrictive housing beds
| Program | Beds | Occupied |
|---|---|---|
| Tier II | 34 | 28 |
Source: Georgia Department of Corrections records produced to GPS under the Open Records Act (R031471-090226, R024615-101925, R031710-091426). A person's security level is GDC's classification of that person, which can differ from the prison's own designation.
Follow McRae Women’s Facility
Leadership & Accountability (as of 2026 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Warden (facility lead) | Yancey, Jody LEE | 2023-01-01 | 5 / 15 |
| Deputy Warden of Administration (facility deputy) | Dykes, Heather | 2025-08-16 | 4 / 4 |
| Deputy Warden of Care and Treatment (facility deputy) | Miller, Wendy | 2026-01-16 | 4 / 4 |
| Deputy Warden of Security (facility deputy) | MacK, Carnesia Renee | 2026-04-16 | 3 / 3 |
About
Last updated November 8, 2026.(DS)
McRae Women's Facility
McRae Women's Facility sits in McRae-Helena, in Telfair County, on a site repurposed from a former large federal facility and opened in 2000. It is a women's state prison operating at minimum security with a rated capacity of 2,275 and an original design capacity of 1,978; GPS's records show 1,183 people held there, roughly 52 percent of rated capacity. The facility's stated mission centers on close-custody control, basic education, and limited vocational and reentry programming, and it is being brought online in phases — intended, in the Department's design, to relieve overcrowding at Arrendale and Pulaski by consolidating a large share of Georgia's female population at one site.
That consolidation is the analytical thread running through everything below. GPS's mortality registry records five deaths at McRae since 2020, four of them in a single spring 2026 window whose causes remain unclassified. A state open-records release of Centurion's medical contract shows a staffing matrix for McRae that, by the contractor's own workbook, was not met. And the families whose accounts GPS has published describe a facility where fear of dying inside is a routine feature of the phone call home.
Five Deaths, Four of Them in One Spring
GPS's mortality registry, which counts deaths in GDC custody from 2020 forward and is always a floor because the Department reports deaths roughly two months late, records five deaths at McRae. The first is Jadia Corine Rozier, who died July 20, 2025, at age 23; the registry lists her cause as Natural/Medical.
The other four fall in a ten-week span in 2026, and all four carry a cause of Unknown/Pending — meaning GPS does not yet know why they died:
- Beverly Suzannne Sipple died March 16, 2026, at age 59.
- Kristal Lyn Layne died May 10, 2026, at age 55.
- Shannon Michelle Rush died May 16, 2026, at age 43.
- Chasity King died May 18, 2026, at age 26.
The clustering is the finding. Four deaths at one facility inside ten weeks, with no cause coding yet available, is the kind of pattern that in Georgia's system has historically resolved into medical-neglect findings only after families or advocates force the records out. GPS does not assert a cause for any of the four; the registry's silence is itself the public-record condition.
Rozier's case is the one with documentation behind it. GDC confirmed her death, and the Telfair County coroner's file — certified by Coroner Charles A. Bethea on Georgia death certificate Form 3903 — records that she was found unresponsive in her cell and pronounced dead at 11:20 a.m. on July 20, 2025, at McRae. An autopsy was performed July 22, 2025, at the GBI lab in Pooler. The death certificate records the immediate cause as a ruptured thoracic aorta dissection and the manner of death as natural. The case had at one point been categorized as a homicide; the coroner's documentation reclassified it to natural, and the earlier homicide categorization carried no supporting source in the notes. Neither page of the coroner's documentation contains a GBI case number.
A Medical Contract That Doesn't Staff Itself
In October 2026, GDC fulfilled a GPS open-records request (R032595-101926) for its inmate health care contracts, releasing 46 files covering Centurion's medical contract, MHM's mental health and dental contract, and CorrectRx's pharmacy contract. The Centurion material includes staffing matrices by facility and average daily population band — and the McRae matrices are the most detailed public picture of what the state has actually contracted to provide at this prison.
The matrices scale with population. At an ADP of 0–200, McRae's matrix totals 24.30 FTE across all shifts, including 13.10 on days, 7.00 on evenings, and 4.20 on nights. At 201–400 the matrix lists 15.25 FTE on day shift and 0.00 on evenings; at 401–600 the all-shift total is 35.60 FTE; at 601–800 it is 41.40. Across every band, several positions are allocated at zero: no Medical Director, no Pharmacy Director, no Staff Pharmacist, no Radiology Tech, no Physical Therapist, no Occupational Therapist, no Telemedicine Hub Technician, and no Telemedicine Site Coordinator. The OB/Gyn allocation runs 0.10 FTE at the smallest band, 0.15 at 201–400, and 0.20 at the two larger bands — a fraction of a single gynecologist for a women's prison of more than a thousand people.
The contract's own performance data shows the matrix was not met. Centurion's staffing workbook comparing contracted to worked hours, July through December 2025, records McRae's Q3 2025 facility rollup at 53.10 matrix FTE against 18.88 worked — a fill rate of 0.6763, below the contract's 75 percent penalty threshold. The workbook's penalty calculation uses a contract-wide weighted average rate of $41.90 and a 1.2 multiplier.
What that shortfall means clinically is visible in the position-level detail. At McRae, the Certified Medical Assistant/Tele Assistant line shows 1.00 FTE contracted in July 2025 against 152.50 hours worked (0.8609 of contract) and 177.14 contracted in August against 123.75 worked (0.6986). The pattern is not a single bad month; it is a staffing plan that the contractor's own accounting shows running under its floor.
What Families Describe
GPS's Tell My Story series has published accounts from a mother writing under the name HELPUS whose daughter is held at McRae. In "A Sentence That Isn't Supposed to Be a Death Sentence," published October 23, 2026, she describes her daughter calling her from the facility and telling her she is scared to die in there — the voice on the phone, she writes, is what she carries with her, not the numbers or the reports. The same account describes a tuberculosis outbreak at McRae and Pulaski, and states that only staff can obtain masks — that women ask for masks and staff are told they will be fired for giving them one.
In "Her Charges Don't Define Her," the same author describes a daughter two years into a sentence at McRae, a nonviolent offender with a tentative parole date of 2031. In "Not Their Mistakes," she writes that her daughter was at Whitworth before being transferred to McRae, and that most of what she knows comes from her daughter's letters — letters she describes as difficult to read, reporting no programs inside.
These are family accounts, published as such. GPS's reporting on the TB death at Pulaski State Prison — where a woman in GDC custody died of tuberculosis complications after entering custody at McRae and being transferred to Pulaski, becoming acutely ill and being hospitalized October 3 — describes what families had been warning about since October 13. That reporting describes accounts that have not been corroborated by court records or DOJ documentation and should be read as accounts rather than confirmed findings.
GPS has also received recurring reports from inside McRae describing women denied meals, barriers to sick call during the diagnostics period tied to inability to access funds, and serious chronic medical conditions going inadequately treated. A former travel nurse who worked night shifts at the facility this spring described to GPS a unit routinely without an officer in medical — a mandated post — and as few as two officers covering all units on a given night. GPS registers these accounts; it does not assert them as established fact.
Food Service, Inspections, and the Limits of the Score
The Georgia Department of Public Health inspected McRae's food service five times between August 2024 and February 2026, all under inspector Victoria Thornton. The scores were 100 (initial, August 27, 2024), 100 (initial, January 7, 2025), 94 (routine, February 25, 2025), 85 (routine, July 29, 2025), and 93 (routine, February 24, 2026). The July 2025 inspection — the lowest — cited food-contact surfaces not cleaned and sanitized, and improper hot holding temperatures. The February 2026 inspection cited improper eating, tasting, drinking or tobacco use, and personal cleanliness.
GPS has documented a systemic pattern in which DPH scores fail to capture kitchen sanitation failure, 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, "Rats, Insects and Mold," independently reported rats in kitchens, insects in food, moldy trays, and visible malnutrition across Georgia facilities. GPS treats high inspection scores coexisting with sustained witness reports of contamination as the analytical center of its investigation "Dunked, Stacked, and Served" — and McRae's own score history, which fell 15 points in five months and then partially recovered, fits that frame.
Staffing, Classification, and the Larger System
McRae does not exist in isolation. GPS has documented that officer vacancies across Georgia's prisons have run between 49.3 and 60 percent systemwide for multiple years, against a national standard of no more than 10 percent; that the hiring pipeline cannot close the gap, with an acceptance rate under 15 percent and 82.7 percent of new hires leaving in their first year; and that Georgia ranks last of 50 states for correctional-officer pay. The October 2024 DOJ findings letter 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."
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. That is Telfair State Prison, not McRae — but it is the same county, and it is the staffing environment into which McRae's phased expansion is being loaded.
GPS has separately documented classification drift: medium-security facilities operating as close security without the staffing and infrastructure that designation requires. McRae's own profile describes a close-custody control mission at a facility rated minimum security, which is the drift in miniature. The facility's Tier II housing shows 34 beds with 28 occupied and 6 vacant — 82.35 percent occupancy — a small unit, but one that sits inside a 2,275-bed plant holding 1,183 people and still filling.
Leadership and Accountability
GPS's personnel records list Jody Lee Yancey as warden at McRae, with a start date of January 1, 2023. The deputy leadership is Heather Dykes (Deputy Warden of Administration, since August 16, 2025), Wendy Miller (Deputy Warden of Care and Treatment, since January 16, 2026), and Carnesia Renee MacK (Deputy Warden of Security, since April 16, 2026). The Care and Treatment post — the deputy responsible for medical and mental-health conditions — turned over in January 2026, four months before the spring death cluster.
On October 24, 2026, Darlene Pickle commented on a Facebook post: "This is not ok for them or the public. Someone needs to be held accountable." It is a single public comment, and GPS does not treat it as more than that — but it captures the accountability question the record above keeps returning to. Four women died at McRae in ten weeks in 2026 and the public cause coding is still pending. A medical contractor's own workbook shows the facility staffed below its contracted floor. And the state's inspection regime keeps issuing A grades to a kitchen whose equipment and practices witnesses describe in very different terms.
Sources
This analysis draws on GDC mortality and population records and the Telfair County coroner's documentation for Jadia Corine Rozier, including the Georgia death certificate (Form 3903) certified by Coroner Charles A. Bethea and the GBI autopsy conducted at the Pooler lab; Georgia Department of Public Health food-service inspection reports for McRae Women's Facility, 2024–2026; GDC's October 2026 release of inmate health care contracts under GPS public-records request R032595-101926, including Centurion's staffing matrices by average daily population band, its contracted-versus-worked hours workbook for July–December 2025, and its quarterly staffing and penalty rollups; GPS personnel records; Georgia Prisoners' Speak — Tell My Story accounts published October 9 and October 23, 2026; GPS's own systemic reporting on staffing collapse, classification drift, and food-service sanitation; and family and staff accounts collected by GPS.
Mortality Statistics
5 deaths documented at this facility from 2020 to present.
Deaths by Year
- 2026: 4
- 2025: 1
- 2024: 0
- 2023: 0
- 2022: 0
- 2021: 0
- 2020: 0
County Public Health Department
Food service and sanitation at McRAE WOMEN’S FACILITY fall under the jurisdiction of the Telfair 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
- Victoria Thornton
- Address
-
P.O. Box 55328
McRae, GA 31055 - Phone
- (229) 868-7404
- Victoria.Thornton@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.
November 14, 2026
RE: Request for Unannounced Public Health Inspection of Food Service Operations at McRAE WOMEN’S FACILITY
Dear Victoria Thornton,
I am writing to respectfully request that your office conduct a thorough, unannounced inspection of food service and sanitation practices at McRAE WOMEN’S FACILITY, located in Telfair 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
Georgia Department of Public Health
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”
Recent inspections
| Date | Score | Purpose | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 24, 2026 | 93 | Routine | |
| Jul 29, 2025 | 85 | Routine | |
| Feb 25, 2025 | 94 | Routine | |
| Jan 7, 2025 | 100 | Initial | |
| Aug 27, 2024 | 100 | Initial |
February 24, 2026 — Score 93
Routine · Inspector: Victoria Thornton
| Code | Violation | Pts | Inspector notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2-2B |
proper eating, tasting, drinking, or tobacco use 511-6-1.03(5)(k)1&2 - eating, drinking, or using tobacco (c) Corrected | 4 | Observed multiple open beverages and several food workers drinking from open beverages in food preparation areas. Cups must be in a lid and straw in food preparation areas. COS - Drinks removed. |
| 12B |
personal cleanliness 511-6-1.03(5)(g) - jewelry (c) | 3 | Observed multiple food workers wearing bracelets while preparing food. CA: No jewelry other than a plain wedding band may be worn. |
July 29, 2025 — Score 85
Routine · Inspector: Victoria Thornton
| Code | Violation | Pts | Inspector notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4-2B | food-contact surfaces: cleaned & sanitized Corrected Repeat | 4 | Observed chlorine sanitizer at the 3-compartment sink not at a proper minimum strength for manual warewashing. COS - PIC added chlorine to the sink to reach correct concentration. |
| 6-1B |
proper hot holding temperatures 511-6-1.04(6)(f) - time/temperature control for safety; hot holding (p) Corrected | 9 | Observed chicken off the staff dining hot bar temperature at 129F. Time/temperature control for safety food must be hot held at 135F or above. COS - Chicken was rapidly reheated to 179F hot hot holding. |
February 25, 2025 — Score 94
Routine · Inspector: Victoria Thornton
| Code | Violation | Pts | Inspector notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4-2A |
food stored covered 511-6-1.04(4)(c)1(iv) - packaged & unpackaged food, food stored covered(c) Corrected | 4 | Rice and beans stored open in dry storage; food must be stored covered. COS - Food covered at time of inspection. |
| 4-2B |
food-contact surfaces: cleaned & sanitized 511-6-1.05(6)(n) - manual and mechanical warewashing equipment, chemical sanitization-temperature, ph, concentration, hardness (p,pf) Corrected | 4 | Observed chlorine sanitizer at the 3-compartment sink not at a proper minimum strength for manual warewashing. COS - I went over using chlorine with the staff at time of inspection. |
| 16B |
plumbing installed; proper backflow devices 511-6-1.06(2)(r) - system maintained in good repair (p, c) | 2 | Handwash sink near the walk-in cooler is holding water. The rinse compartment in the 3-compartment sink is leaking. All plumbing shall be in good repair. |
January 7, 2025 — Score 100
Initial · Inspector: Victoria Thornton
No violations recorded for this inspection.
August 27, 2024 — Score 100
Initial · Inspector: Victoria Thornton
No violations recorded for this inspection.
Recent reports (5)
Source-attributed observations and allegations from news coverage and reports submitted to GPS. Each entry credits its source.
- OBSERVATION According to Georgia Prisoners Speak — Tell My Story Published: Oct 23, 2026A Sentence That Isn't Supposed to Be a Death Sentence
"Author: HELPUS My daughter is at McRae Women's Facility. She calls me and tells me she's scared to die in there. That's the thing I carry. Not the numbers, not the reports. Her voice on the phone telling me she's scared to die in there. There's a tuberculosis outbreak at McRae and at Pulaski. Only the staff are able to get masks. The women ask for masks, and the staff are being told they'll be fired if they give them one. That's what my daughter tells me. Fired, for handing a woman a mask. So the masks are in that building. They're just not for the women. She tells me they're testing positive and then putting the inmates back in the dorm with the positive readings. Back in with everybody else. The same dorm, the same bunks, the same air. She hasn't been tested herself. They're only testing certain inmates. Not all of them. She's living in there with people who've tested positive and she doesn't know her own status. She can't tell you if she has it. Nobody will tell her. One woman has died. My daughter knows the prison told that woman's family it was pneumonia. That's what the women inside believe happened. That's what I believe too. A woman died, and her family was told pneumonia. They're scared. All of them. My daughter is scared, and the women around her are scared, and there's nothing they can do about it from inside. They can ask. They can ask for a mask and get told somebody will lose their job for giving it to them. That's not much of a choice to hand a person. They covered it up for a long time. That's how it feels from out here. Long enough that they let an audit walk through that facility knowing they were exposing them as well — people walking through those dorms, breathing that air, nobody telling them what they were walking into. I've been reporting it. That's what I can do from where I am. I've been sending emails to the state corrections official since last week. I have not gotten one response. Nothing. No answer to my emails at all. In my view he's covering it up too, and all I can tell you is what I've seen — emails sent, and silence coming back. It's not just me. Other families are reaching out as well. We're all concerned for our kids. We compare notes and we're hearing the same things from inside. Women calling their mothers, their families, telling them the same story. So it's not one woman saying it. It's families, one after another, all saying it. The facility was overcrowded already. That's part of this. There aren't enough officers to oversee all of those inmates, so some of the women are left to fend for themselves. Left to figure it out on their own. You put a sickness in a place like that, with that many people and not enough staff to watch them, and what do you think is going to happen. So I keep asking the same question. How do you receive a sentence, and it's not a death sentence, but you go inside and you could possibly die? Nobody sentenced them to that. That's not what the judge said. That's not what the paperwork says. But that's what's happening. It's stressful. That's the word I keep coming back to. Stressful. Sleepless nights, worried about my daughter. Lying awake thinking about a dorm I've never been in, full of women I've never met, and one of them is mine. People on the outside don't see that part. They see a sentence, they see a facility, they see a name. They don't see a mother on the phone, night after night, hearing her daughter say she's scared to die in there."
Read source → - OBSERVATION According to Georgia Prisoners Speak — Tell My Story Published: Oct 9, 2026Her Charges Don't Define Her
"Author: HELPUS My daughter has been at McRae Women's Facility for two years. She is a nonviolent offender. Her tentative parole date is 2031. I'll say that part again, because it's the thing I can't get past. Two years in. Nonviolent. And the date they gave her is 2031. To me, that's wrong. That's cruel punishment. I'm not a lawyer. I don't hold any title. I'm a mother. And I'm telling this story because I want the parole board and anyone else in a position to make a difference to show some compassion — and to give second chances. I want people to understand what is happening to these women, and what their families are carrying on the outside. My daughter doesn't just talk about herself when we get the chance to talk. She talks about the women around her, especially the other nonviolent offenders. She tries to advocate for all of them. They come to her about their cases, about their kids, about their mental state. She tells me some of them are ready to give up. That it feels like nobody even cares. That's a heavy thing for her to hold, on top of her own situation. And she holds it anyway. Here is what she tells me about inside. There are no programs — not for lack of wanting. She tells me she wants to do more than just sit around. She's sure there are programs on the outside, things people could attend to rehabilitate themselves, to actually work on coming out different. But there's nothing for her there, she says, because of the lack of staff. The counselors who used to be there — they quit. My daughter tells me it's because they couldn't help the way they wanted to help. So when a woman is in crisis inside that place, who steps in? She says nobody. She says they only have each other to rely on. There are days she can't get up out of the bed, because that's all there is to do. There's nowhere to go and nothing waiting once she's up. She tells me the staff worry about inspections and not much else. And then she asks me a question I can't answer: is it their fault the state is housing more inmates than they can handle? She is frustrated. She is mentally going through it. That's how she puts it to me, and I can hear it in her voice. She has also told me how certain staff treat the women. When she tries to explain it, she compares it to the Stanford experiment. I asked her what she means by that. She talks about the mental abuse of authority — how they use that authority to control them, how they treat them like they are nobody. She told me about a woman who asked to go to the library and was told by staff that they didn't know she could read. A grown woman. Asking to borrow a book. That's humiliation, plain and simple. I want to be clear: these are things my daughter has told me. I'm not a witness to them. I'm passing them on because somebody should be looking into them, and because families like mine need to be heard. We visit when we can. We talk on the phone. We write letters. Or we try to. For months now, the mail hasn't been getting through. Staff shortages, they say. Months of letters that she may never have read. Months of words I wrote to my child, sitting somewhere instead of in her hands. It makes me mad. She doesn't deserve that. She is my baby. And even though she has made mistakes, her charges don't define her. That's the heart of all of this, for me. Her charges don't define her. People who meet my daughter inside, or who read a charge sheet and think they know who she is — that is not who she is. She is kind. She loves to help people. She is selfless, and I'm not exaggerating because I'm her mother. That's how she has been since she was little. As a child, whatever she had, she wanted other children to have it too. I always admired that in her. As she got older, she opened up her home to friends who had nowhere to go. That's the same person sitting inside that facility right now. She shares with the other women there who don't have what she has. Same girl. Same heart. She tells me she wants to advocate for the women she's met. She says it has given her purpose. Sometimes I think places like this put a fight in people. She wants to build a foundation for women — to help them with their cases and with the other concerns they have, the ones who don't have family on the outside to help them. And she always tells me: when she gets to come home, she will become their family. That's what she wants her life to look like on the other side. Not just to be free. To be useful. To be there for women who have nobody, the way she wishes somebody had been there for her. And still, she is just waiting. Waiting on a parole date that seems like it's never coming, because of how long it takes parole to look at them — to send home who they can send home, with the system as overcrowded as it is. Nobody has explained to me where her case actually stands. No timeline. Just a PED for 2031. How do I hold onto hope with a date like that sitting in front of me? I hold onto it because she's my child, and because a nonviolent charge should not mean a decade of waiting for a chance to prove she's changed. I hold onto it because of who she is, not because of what she did. I'm not asking anyone to disregard public safety. I'm not asking for something I wouldn't ask for on behalf of anyone else's family. I'm asking for what I've said from the start. Compassion. Second chances. A real look at the women who are ready, who have served time, who have changed, who have families waiting on them. Not just to sit there while their lives and their children's lives pass them by. If there's one thing I want people to take from this, it's this. Nobody is exempt from this. Everybody makes mistakes. It could be one of them one day, and they would want that same compassion shown to them. If you are in a position to make a difference in someone's life, and to give a chance — do it. Because you never know when you'll need a chance. She is not just a number. She is not forgotten. She is not without a voice. Free her future. Bring our women home."
Read source → - OBSERVATION According to Georgia Prisoners Speak — Tell My Story Published: Oct 9, 2026Not Their Mistakes
"Author: HELPUS I chose the name HerVoice because women in the prison system are silenced and never heard. That's the whole reason. I want people to understand it's not just men who should be heard. Women suffer too — they suffer tremendously — and it goes to deaf ears. My daughter is being held at McRae Women's Facility. She was at Whitworth before she was transferred to McRae. Most of what I know, I know from her letters. She writes, she calls, and we visit when we can. The letters are hard to read. She tells me there are no programs inside to help with rehabilitation. Nothing running that would help her earn her way toward release. She's housed at a closed security prison, but she's classified minimum security. The men have work details and jobs — that's what she says. The women don't. They sit in a dorm all day with nothing to do, leaving out only to eat. No mental health counselors. No general population counselors. Just a dorm, day in and day out, nothing to help them be released. And when someone dies in there, she says they just make them move on like it didn't happen. She tells me they're threatened not to speak up. When a woman tries to speak up about programs or about mental health, she's basically told that's not their problem, and she gets yelled at. The guards carry riot guns to intimidate them. And if someone reaches out anyway, my daughter says they come in and tell them they don't care who they reach out to, and they'd place them behind the doors of their cell with no communication with family. No contact with the people who love them. I don't know if that has happened to her. I know she carries it. Her whole aura has changed. She is not herself anymore. At Whitworth, she was doing fine. She was going to school. She was in other programs. Now it's just blank. She told me she doesn't know how much more she can take. To me, it sounds like she is at her end. When we talk, she is always down. I believe it's taking a toll on her mentally and physically. And what she talks about, over and over — she talks about how women are held longer than men on the same charges. That's not only something she sees inside. We've looked into it ourselves, and from what we've found, the parole board moves quicker for men in certain cases. She talks about how the men have work programs and details to keep them occupied, and the women are locked in a dorm day in and day out, only leaving out to eat. I want people to know who she is. Not just where she's held. She's a hard worker. She's always been into fashion and singing. She started her own fashion company — she's actually been put in fashion shows. When my oldest daughter was diagnosed with kidney failure and placed on dialysis, my daughter took care of her for ten years. She took that on. When my oldest daughter passed, she adopted my grandson and raised him. He was sixteen when she went in. He's graduated now, but you can tell this was another loss for him. And when she met her husband, he had a two-year-old boy whose mother left him when he was a baby. She took on raising him too. Both of those kids are lost without her. She always looked out for her family. That's who she is. That's who those gates have. She's been gone two years now. We're fighting the appeal, and we fight on it every day. It's exhausting. What keeps me going is wanting my daughter home. That's the whole thing. What I want people to know is that these women are still human. They are not their mistakes. They deserve to be treated as such. There are talented women behind those gates. Some of them were never given a chance. Some were in the wrong place at the wrong time. A second chance won't hurt. They have futures locked away. FreeHerFuture is what we like to say. What if a mass release took place, and those women came home and changed their lives? We would never know — because they won't give it a try. If they can't provide these services, then why not try some early releases? Why not reform programs on the outside? Give them a chance. Justice is not always a sentence. Sometimes it's a second chance. Because right now they are leaving prison with nothing. Just trauma. And they are still human. They are not their mistakes."
Read source → - READER REPORT Submitted via GPS public submission form Recorded by GPS: Jan 5, 2026PATTERN — McRAE WOMEN’S FACILITY: The women are frequently not being fed. Everyone needs to eat, this just isn\'t right! Also, during the…Read source →
Timeline (5)
Source Articles (7)
Former leadership
Officials who previously held leadership roles at this facility.
| Role | Name | Tenure | Deaths this facility / career |
|---|---|---|---|
| Warden 3 (facility lead) | Smith, Aimee S | 2023-11-22 → 2023-11-22 | — / — |
| Warden (facility lead) | Yancey, Jody | 2026-07-05 → present | — / — |
| DEPUTY WARDEN (facility deputy) | Lilliott, Shameka | 2024-12-16 → 2025-12-31 | 2 / 2 |
| DEPUTY WARDEN (facility deputy) | Butts, Melvin | 2023-11-22 → 2025-12-31 | 1 / 1 |
| DEPUTY WARDEN (facility deputy) | Brown, Sonja D | 2023-11-22 → 2024-12-31 | — / 5 |
| Deputy Warden (facility deputy) | Green, Gwendolyn | 2023-11-22 → 2023-11-22 | — / 1 |
Location
Aerial View
Satellite image: Esri World Imagery. Architecture documents what the building was designed to hold. See the system-wide receipts at gps.press/warehouse.
Then and now
Each photo shows the same 1.2 km square, north up, so buildings line up from one year to the next. The older photos are U.S. Geological Survey aerial photographs. The photos from 1988 and earlier were taken on film and lined up with the later ones by their roads, so their positions are approximate. The early-1980s photos were taken from very high up and are less sharp. Select a photo to see it full size.