METRO REENTRY FACILITY

Last updated September 13, 2026.(DS)

A Reentry Mission Under Strain

Metro Reentry Facility occupies the renovated former Metro State Prison in Atlanta's DeKalb County and reopened in 2018 under the state's prisoner-reentry initiative. The facility houses roughly 300–350 men who are within a defined window of release or parole eligibility, with a rated capacity of 355 against a current population of 354 — operating at 99.7% of capacity. Its stated purpose is intensive programming: cognitive-behavioral classes, job-readiness and vocational training, education and life-skills courses, and family-reunification support, all aimed at reducing recidivism by preparing participants for a supervised return to the community. Warden Gregory L. Sampson has led the facility since January 2025, with Deputy Wardens Adrienne J. Bunkley, Latrese Davis Schofield, and Robert Owens.

But the facility's reentry mission has collided with the same systemic pressures GPS has documented across the Georgia Department of Corrections — and with a specific death that has drawn official scrutiny.

The Death of Silas Westbrook and the Washington State Prison Riot

Silas Westbrook, 42, died at Metro Reentry Facility on January 17, 2026, six days after being injured in a gang-related riot at Washington State Prison — a disturbance that killed four people and left that facility on continuous lockdown for more than five months. According to GDC's own public communications, Westbrook was transferred to Metro Reentry after being hospitalized with minor injuries from the Washington State Prison disturbance. He suffered a medical emergency upon arrival and was pronounced deceased.

The GDC Office of Professional Standards is investigating Westbrook's death — the fourth inmate death the office was investigating at the time, according to GDC's public statements. His body was turned over to the county coroner and taken to the GBI Crime Lab to determine the official cause of death. GPS's mortality database records Westbrook's cause as Unknown/Pending.

Westbrook's death was part of a five-death week across the GDC system between January 9 and January 17, 2026. Dajhmere Hall, 30, was found dead at Washington State Prison on January 9, two days before the riot, with his cause also held as Unknown/Pending. Teddy Jackson, 27; Ahmod Hatcher, 23; and Jimmy Trammell, 42 — who was days from release — were killed in the January 11 riot itself. Twelve inmates were charged in late April 2026 with felony murder, aggravated assault, and gang participation in connection with the disturbance.

The riot and its aftermath illustrate the staffing collapse GPS has documented systemwide. Russell Zirkle, a former GDC assistant warden, has stated on the record that Macon State Prison was among facilities running a 70–80% officer vacancy rate — testimony GPS featured in its reporting on the staffing crisis. That corroborates GPS's systemic finding that officer vacancies across Georgia's prisons have run between 49.3% and 60% for multiple years, against a national standard of no more than 10%, and that the October 2024 DOJ findings letter concluded GDC leadership "has lost control of its facilities" and placed "too much blame on gangs and insufficient emphasis on understaffing."

A Mortality Record That Belies the Reentry Mission

GPS has tracked 33 deaths at Metro Reentry Facility since its mortality records began on January 1, 2020. Twenty are classified as Natural/Medical, one as Accident, and twelve as Unknown/Pending — a category that includes deaths still awaiting official cause determination, like Westbrook's.

The recent mortality record is striking for the ages of the men who died. Thomas Allen McKendrick, 82, died on July 6, 2026, with cause Unknown/Pending. Cedric Clement Pierce, 61, died April 13, 2026; Samuel Dennis Hunt, 64, died March 1, 2026; Donald Woods, 65, died January 31, 2026 — all with causes held as Unknown/Pending. Robert Rodriguez Johnson, 46, died January 1, 2026, of Natural/Medical causes. In late 2025, Rodney Corbin, 55; Stephen Mott, 52; Wilson Beavers, 66; and John Whitfield, 61, all died of Natural/Medical causes within an 18-day span between October 5 and October 23.

The concentration of Unknown/Pending causes — twelve of 33 deaths — reflects a system in which official cause determinations lag months behind deaths, and in which GPS's count is explicitly a floor: GDC reports deaths approximately two months late. Systemwide, GPS has independently tracked 1,890 deaths in GDC custody since 2020.

Heat, Water, and Food: Conditions at the Facility

Inmate accounts collected by GPS describe a persistent pattern of environmental and food-service failures at Metro Reentry Facility. Multiple incarcerated witnesses report that the facility has no air conditioning, and that ice — which some residents are permitted to obtain — is hoarded and sold by certain individuals rather than distributed to alleviate heat. Witnesses describe drinking water that is hot and tastes strongly of chlorine, with several reporting that consuming it causes cramps and diarrhea. Food is described as so unappetizing it induces nausea.

These accounts sit within a systemic pattern GPS has documented across GDC facilities. GPS's reporting has found that GDC spends approximately $1.69 per person per day on food — under 60 cents per meal — versus the FDA Thrifty Food Plan estimate of roughly $10 per day for an adult man's nutritionally adequate diet. The Marshall Project independently corroborated the pattern in May 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 the DOJ documented in October 2024.

GPS has also documented a systemic pattern of food-service sanitation failure across GDC kitchens that Department of Public Health inspection scores systematically fail to capture: tray-sanitizing dishwashers broken for sustained periods, sustained roach and rodent infestation, and meals served on visibly contaminated trays. 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. High DPH scores at GDC facilities coexist with sustained witness reports of equipment failure and food contamination — a contradiction GPS has explored in its investigation "Dunked, Stacked, and Served."

The witness accounts from Metro Reentry — hot water, nausea-inducing food, ice treated as a commodity rather than a basic provision — sit within the gap between statutory requirement and lived conditions that GPS has documented across the system.

The Broader Context: A System in Collapse

Metro Reentry's problems do not exist in isolation. GPS has documented that most GDC facilities are 30–40+ years old, with deferred maintenance producing systemwide infrastructure failures: broken cell-door locks, inoperative surveillance and fire-alarm systems, mold and water failures, broken kitchen sanitization equipment, and pest infestations. The DOJ's October 2024 findings, the Guidehouse 2024 assessment, and Commissioner Oliver's public "end of life" statements all corroborate the pattern. GPS treats infrastructure collapse as a force multiplier for the violence, classification, mortality, and staffing crises it has documented at the facility level.

The staffing collapse is the integrated structural finding that explains much of what follows. Approximately 31% of the system's ~49,000 incarcerated population 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. 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 ~1,250 maximum-security inmates.

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 from sexual harm. Of 456 sexual-abuse allegations recorded in 2022, only 35 were substantiated — 7.7%. GDC's own consultants 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.

For a facility whose entire purpose is preparing men for release, the stakes of these systemic failures are acute. Metro Reentry houses men within a defined window of release or parole eligibility — men like Jimmy Trammell, who was days from release when he was killed at Washington State Prison, and men like Silas Westbrook, who survived a riot only to die after transfer to a facility that was supposed to be a step toward freedom.

Sources

This analysis draws on GDC public communications regarding the death of Silas Westbrook and the Washington State Prison riot; GPS's mortality database and facility records; GPS's systemic findings on staffing, infrastructure, food service, and sexual violence in GDC custody; on-record testimony from former GDC assistant warden Russell Zirkle; reporting by The Marshall Project; and inmate accounts collected by GPS staff at Metro Reentry Facility.