Last updated October 18, 2026.(DS)

Montgomery State Prison: A Small Population, a Long Record, and the Gap Between the Two

Montgomery State Prison sits in Mount Vernon, in Montgomery County, a medium-security prison for adult male felons that opened in 1972 and was renovated in the mid-1990s. Its rated capacity is 900; GPS's current population figure for the facility is 386, or 42.9 percent of rated capacity — a striking number in a system where crowding is the norm. The people held there are general-population prisoners who also staff Correctional Industries and outside work details, and the facility's stated mission emphasizes structured programs and reentry preparation. The public record around Montgomery is thin but not empty: a $500,000 state liability settlement from a 2020 incident, two deaths in GPS's registry since 2020, a run of near-perfect food-safety inspection scores, and a family's account of a Hepatitis C diagnosis and what they describe as withheld curative treatment. This page reads those threads against the systemwide findings GPS has documented — staffing collapse, classification drift, infrastructure decay, and a food-service pattern that inspection scores do not capture.

The Physical Plant and the Population It Actually Holds

Montgomery opened in 1972 as a medium-security facility and was renovated in the mid-1990s. GPS's standing record lists a rated capacity of 900 beds and an original design capacity of 206 — a figure that, read literally, describes a facility that has been expanded roughly fourfold over its life. The current population GPS records is 386, well under the rated figure.

That gap matters analytically. Georgia's prison system has spent years under federal scrutiny for crowding and understaffing, and a facility running at 42.9 percent of rated capacity is an outlier within it. GPS does not have evidence in hand explaining why Montgomery's population sits where it does — whether beds are offline, whether the rated figure is aspirational, or whether classification decisions have routed people elsewhere. What can be said is that the facility's staffing and infrastructure are sized to a 900-bed plant while the population it holds is less than half that.

The facility's programming, per GPS's record, centers on structured programs and reentry preparation, with general-population prisoners staffing Correctional Industries and outside work details. GPS's record does not enumerate specific educational, vocational, or treatment programs at Montgomery beyond that description.

A Half-Million-Dollar Settlement and What the Ledger Records

The most concrete accountability document tied to Montgomery in GPS's records is a state liability payout. According to the Georgia Department of DOAS Risk Management settlement ledger, obtained through open records, the state paid $500,000 to settle the case of Richard Alan Lankford, tied to Montgomery State Prison and an incident dated February 17, 2020. GPS's records classify the matter as a GDC settlement — a court-verified liability payout rather than an allegation.

The ledger entry establishes the payment and the facility; it does not, in the record GPS holds, describe the underlying conduct. What the settlement does establish is that a claim arising at Montgomery was serious enough to resolve for half a million dollars, and that the state's own risk-management accounting ties it to this facility. In a prison system where GPS has documented 1,918 deaths in GDC custody since 2020, liability settlements are one of the few places where the state's own books acknowledge harm.

Two Deaths in the Registry

GPS's mortality registry, which runs from January 2020 forward, records two deaths at Montgomery State Prison in that period.

Jimmy M Smith died July 31, 2020, at Montgomery State Prison; GPS's registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical. He was 61.

Dante Todd died July 12, 2026, at Montgomery State Prison. He was 50. GPS's registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending — meaning GPS does not yet know the cause and does not guess at one.

Two deaths in more than six years at a facility of this size is a low count, and GPS treats its registry figures as floors rather than ceilings: GDC reports deaths roughly two months late, so recent deaths may not yet appear. The registry count is not an all-time figure, and GPS separately holds death records from 2015 through 2019 obtained through open records that are not included in this count.

Inspection Scores and the Sanitation Question They Don't Answer

Montgomery's food-safety record, as documented by the Georgia Department of Public Health, is close to flawless. DPH inspectors — Dale Krosting conducted each of the five inspections GPS holds — scored the facility 100 (Grade A) on June 9, 2023; 98 (Grade A) on December 28, 2023, with three violations cited including in-use utensil storage, physical facilities maintenance and cleanliness, and ventilation and lighting; 98 (Grade A) on June 20, 2024, with one violation for physical facilities maintenance and cleanliness; 100 (Grade A) on February 18, 2025; and 100 (Grade A) on March 10, 2026. All five were routine inspections.

Those scores sit inside a contradiction GPS has documented systemwide. GPS's reporting has found a pattern of food-service sanitation failure across GDC kitchens that DPH 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 inspection scores, in GPS's analysis, because DPH 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 reported rats in kitchens, insects in food, moldy trays, and visible malnutrition across Georgia facilities.

None of that reporting names Montgomery. What it establishes is that a perfect DPH score is not, by itself, evidence that a kitchen is sound — and that the score is the only public window into Montgomery's food service that exists.

What the Systemwide Findings Imply Here

GPS's systemic findings do not name Montgomery as an exemplar facility, and this page does not claim they do. But several bear directly on the conditions a medium-security prison in this system operates under.

GPS has documented that officer vacancies in 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." Former GDC sergeant Tyler Ryals, forced out in 2024 after whistleblowing, told GPS he had personally been the only security person on an entire Telfair compound of roughly 1,250 maximum-security inmates. Separately, former GDC assistant warden Russell Zirkle has said on record, in a timestamped interview, that Telfair and Smith State Prisons were running officer vacancy rates of 70 to 80 percent — testimony GPS reported in "Two Commanders Say Georgia Hides Its Prison Staffing Crisis."

GPS has also documented classification drift: medium-security facilities housing close-security inmates without the staffing and infrastructure that designation implies. GPS published a report titled "The Classification Crisis: How Four Medium Security Prisons Are Killing People" documenting the pattern. That report's title does not establish which four facilities it examined, and nothing in GPS's records ties it to Montgomery.

On infrastructure, GPS has documented that most GDC facilities are 30 to 40 or more years old, with deferred maintenance producing broken cell-door locks, inoperative surveillance and fire-alarm systems, mold and water failures, broken kitchen sanitization equipment, and pest infestations — a pattern corroborated by the DOJ's October 2024 findings, the Guidehouse 2024 assessment, and Commissioner Oliver's public "end of life" statements. Montgomery, opened in 1972, is squarely within that age cohort.

Medical Care and a Family's Account

GPS has received accounts from family members of an incarcerated person at Montgomery describing a Hepatitis C diagnosis verified at the facility in 2026, advanced liver disease, and severe fatigue, pain, and cognitive difficulties. Those accounts allege that facility medical staff are aware of the condition but are withholding a curative antiviral protocol, and the family has characterized the withholding as deliberate indifference to a serious medical need. GPS has also received accounts describing repeated attempts to reach facility leadership — including the warden, a deputy warden, and the medical department — by phone, email, and letter, and describing promised follow-ups that did not materialize. The family has sought review by the GDC Ombudsman and Central Health and legal advocacy from an outside organization.

These are family allegations, not verified findings, and GPS presents them as such. They are consistent with a broader pattern GPS has documented: the system's healthcare contractor is Centurion, and GPS's systemic reporting treats medical rationing as a recurring feature of GDC care rather than a facility-isolated failure.

The facility's current leadership, per GPS's personnel records, is Warden Tracy Glynn Page, who has held the post since June 2024; Deputy Warden of Care and Treatment Tony D Crapps, since June 2026; and Deputy Warden of Administration Stefanie Cooper Calhoun. Elizabeth Scott also appears in GPS's records as a deputy warden.

Sources

This analysis draws on Georgia Department of Public Health food-safety inspection records for Montgomery State Prison, including full reports from inspections conducted between June 2023 and March 2026; the Georgia Department of Administrative Services Risk Management settlement ledger, obtained through open records; GPS's mortality registry and facility records; and GPS's own systemic reporting on staffing, classification, infrastructure, food service, and medical care across the Georgia Department of Corrections, including the October 2024 Department of Justice findings letter, the 2024 Guidehouse assessment, and The Marshall Project's May 2026 investigation of Georgia prison food. Family accounts referenced here were collected by GPS and are presented as allegations.