PHILLIPS TRANSITIONAL CENTER

Analysis written on August 2, 2026.

A Transitional Center Within a Strained System

Phillips Transitional Center, a county-prison facility in Buford, Georgia, holds 194 incarcerated men under minimum-security conditions as they prepare for reentry. Superintendent Verona Baly leads the facility, with Wanda Brown serving as assistant superintendent and deputy warden, Preston Crowder as deputy warden of security, and Bunny Jurnigan as chief of security. Though small and focused on transition, Phillips operates within the same Georgia Department of Corrections apparatus that GPS’s reporting has documented as beset by systemic crises: chronic understaffing, crumbling infrastructure, inadequate nutrition, and pervasive violence.

Staffing Collapse, Nutrition Failure, and Decaying Infrastructure

GPS has documented that officer vacancies across Georgia’s prisons have run between 49% and 60% for years — far exceeding the national standard of no more than 10% — and that some facilities have reached vacancy rates of 80%. The hiring pipeline cannot close the gap: fewer than 15% of applicants are accepted, and 83% of new hires leave within their first year. GPS’s analysis, corroborated by the DOJ’s October 2024 findings and the Guidehouse 2024 assessment, concludes that severe understaffing has allowed gangs to effectively control multiple facilities and that the leadership of GDC has lost control of its institutions. Although Phillips is a low-security transitional center with a fraction of the population of a state prison, it is not shielded from the staffing crisis; a skeleton crew can mean less supervision, slower medical response, and fewer eyes on an already vulnerable group.

The same system that pays its officers last among all fifty states also feeds incarcerated people on less than $1.70 per person per day — under 60 cents a meal. GPS has shown that this figure is roughly one-sixth of the FDA Thrifty Food Plan’s estimate for an adult man’s nutritionally adequate diet, and that the state spends approximately fourteen times more on medical care for incarcerated people than on their food. In parallel, GPS’s investigative work — including its project “Dunked, Stacked, and Served” — has uncovered a pattern of food-service sanitation failures hidden from official inspection scores: dishwashers broken for extended periods, roach and rodent infestations in kitchens, and meals served on visibly contaminated trays. The Marshall Project independently corroborated these conditions in a May 2026 investigation, reporting rats in kitchens, insects in food, and signs of malnutrition across Georgia facilities. While no specific sanitation inspections for Phillips were available in GPS’s database at the time of this writing, the systemwide pattern — and the regulatory-capture dynamic that allows high inspection scores to coexist with hazardous conditions — hangs over every GDC kitchen, including the one that feeds the men at Phillips.

Most GDC facilities are 30 to 40 years old or more, and GPS’s reporting has documented deferred maintenance that has produced broken cell-door locks, inoperative surveillance and fire-alarm systems, mold and water failures, and pest infestations — all corroborated by federal and consultant assessments. Even a transitional center housed in an older building may be contending with the same infrastructure decay that, in larger prisons, acts as a force multiplier for violence and mortality.

Sexual Violence and Accountability Gaps Statewide

The DOJ’s October 2024 findings letter concluded that sexual assault is “rampant” in Georgia’s prisons 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. GDC’s own consultants found that not one of 388 PREA investigation files reviewed met federal standards; Georgia has never submitted a PREA certification of full compliance in the law’s two-decade history. GPS has documented specific clusters of sexual violence at state prisons, staff arrests at women’s facilities, and homicides of incarcerated women. The constitutional baseline for this crisis was established through the Ashley Diamond litigation, which sparked the DOJ investigation. While no publicly reported sexual-assault incidents have been tied specifically to Phillips Transitional Center, the DOJ’s finding that GDC fails to protect people across its entire system means that even a small reentry facility is part of an apparatus condemned for systemic failure to prevent and address sexual violence.

Deaths in Custody and the GDC Mortality Crisis

GPS’s mortality database records two deaths at Phillips Transitional Center since the database began tracking in 2020. One death was attributed to natural or medical causes, and the other remains classified as unknown or pending. The two individuals who died in custody were Anthony Lamar Johnson (October 10, 2021) and Wayne A. Lockett (December 23, 2024). The lack of a clear cause designation for one of the deaths illustrates the broader opacity GPS has documented across Georgia’s prisons, where the state frequently declines to disclose how people die or leaves causes unresolved for months or years.

These deaths occurred against the backdrop of a systemwide mortality crisis. GPS has independently tracked 1,860 deaths in GDC custody since 2020 — a floor count, given GDC’s routine two-month reporting lag. Systemwide, homicides account for 256 of those deaths, and medical neglect and deliberate indifference together account for nine. While Phillips has not recorded a homicide, every death inside a facility where staffing is thin, food is inadequate, and infrastructure is aging is a death that demands scrutiny within that broader pattern.

Sources

This analysis draws on GPS’s own investigative reporting and systemic findings; the October 2024 findings letter from the U.S. Department of Justice; the 2024 Guidehouse assessment; public mortality records tracked by GPS; and independent reporting by The Marshall Project.