PULASKI STATE PRISON

Analysis written on August 2, 2026.

Pulaski State Prison, a medium-security women’s facility that opened in 1994 with a design capacity of 500, now holds 1,186 incarcerated women — nearly 97% of its 1,223-bed rated capacity. The compound, located in Hawkinsville, houses people in double-bunked dormitories and segregation units, and has been the epicenter of overlapping crises: a long pattern of lethal medical neglect, the legacy of a physician with a known history of malpractice deaths, a recent leadership change followed by a surge of reports of retaliation and unsafe conditions, two arrests of senior staff for sexual misconduct, and a series of federal findings that the facility’s conditions violate the Constitution. GPS’s own reporting, combined with public records and news accounts, reveals a facility where medical oversight failed catastrophically for years, where women are now describing extended lockdowns without water or showers, and where the failures of the larger Georgia prison system — understaffing, crumbling infrastructure, gang violence — are concentrated with devastating effect.

Lethal Medical Neglect and the Nazaire Years

At least 22 women died under the care of Dr. Yvon Nazaire while he served as a contract physician at Pulaski State Prison and Emanuel Women’s Facility between 2005 and 2015, according to a published investigation by Georgia Prisoners’ Speak (GPS). The investigation, which drew on medical records and family accounts, reported that Nazaire came to Georgia after a history of malpractice deaths in New York, that the state hired him despite knowing his record, and that he was praised by superiors for cutting costs by denying women medical care — denials that GPS found led directly to fatalities. The state gave him a raise even after the pattern of deaths became apparent.

The human toll extended well past Nazaire’s tenure. In January 2025, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Bonnie Rocheleau died after failing to get adequate care when she developed pneumonia at Pulaski. A separate case documented by the AJC involved Mollianne Fischer, who failed to receive adequate medical attention and was left in a vegetative state. The state paid a $925,000 settlement for Rocheleau’s death and $300,000 for the death of Kimery Finger, both tied to incidents at Pulaski in 2015, according to records from the Georgia Department of Administrative Services Risk Management settlement ledger. Two smaller payouts — $85,000 for Makayah Howard (2024) and $15,900 for Dante Coleman (2018) — also stemmed from incidents at the facility.

Deaths have continued. GPS’s mortality database records 30 deaths at Pulaski since 2020, the majority classified as unknown or pending cause. In July 2025, Kristi Perkins died; in July 2024, Monika Bradley died in custody. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation opened an inquiry into both deaths, and GDC’s Office of Professional Standards launched its own standard investigations. More recently, Tulia Eustache, 66, died in June 2026; Karen Michelle Lindsey, 59, in May; and Deneica Nichelle Randall, 28, died by suicide in March 2026. GDC attributed an air-conditioning mechanical issue on July 9, 2026 to a brief malfunction resolved the same day, and stated there was no indication the deaths were related.

A New Warden and a Wave of Retaliation

Wendy Jackson was appointed warden of Pulaski State Prison on April 16, 2025, replacing outgoing leadership. Jackson was described as an “untested warden” in GPS’s investigative coverage, and within months GPS began receiving reports from incarcerated women and their families of retaliation, intimidation, and unsafe conditions under her leadership. A GPS-authored investigation published in early 2026 documented a pattern of extended lockdowns, retaliatory housing assignments, verbal confrontations by the warden during inspections, and the alleged use of intermediaries to discourage women from contacting facility leadership or outside advocates.

Multiple family members and inmate witnesses have described conditions that GPS’s reporting corroborates: water to cells cut off for days during lockdowns, shower access denied for extended periods, no clean clothing for nearly two weeks, and personal property including locks confiscated with the stated intent of not returning them. GPS has received recurring accounts that staff retaliation followed any contact with news media or outside organizations. In at least one case, a family member alleged that facility leadership deliberately allowed conditions of drugs and violence to escalate in order to qualify Pulaski for a tier program — a restrictive classification regime that would bring additional controls and harsher living conditions. GPS’s intelligence system also records three family fear-for-life signals at high or critical severity between February and July 2026, marking a pattern of escalating alarm among those with loved ones inside.

These reports emerged against a backdrop of documented violence. In January 2025, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that officers and staff at Pulaski failed to notice a prisoner being stabbed until someone from outside the facility called to report it. The prisoner told authorities she had been assaulted hours earlier by ten people who stomped, hit, and kicked her. A separate anonymous tip received by GPS described a severe physical assault by other incarcerated individuals in the past year, with a prior warning call to the facility that went unaddressed. In July 2023, a disturbance involving eleven women armed with broomsticks, a crowbar, metal spray, shanks, and locks destroyed building property; nine security staff responded with chemical agents.

Sexual Misconduct and a Broken System

In May 2024, Deputy Warden Alonzo L. McMillian was arrested at the Hawkinsville prison and booked into the Pulaski County jail on charges of having a sexual relationship with a prisoner. Arrest warrants stated that McMillian engaged in improper sexual contact with a woman on February 24 and 25 of that year. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that a second supervisor, identified as Clark, was arrested the same day on similar charges. GDC spokesperson Joan Heath confirmed both men were terminated on May 2. McMillian was released the next day on a $10,000 bond.

The AJC’s coverage framed the arrests as a signal of a potentially larger systemic problem within the Georgia Department of Corrections. That assessment aligns with the October 2024 findings of the U.S. Department of Justice civil rights investigation, which concluded that sexual assault in Georgia prisons is “rampant” and that GDC does not reasonably protect incarcerated people from sexual harm. The DOJ specifically documented at-knifepoint sexual assaults at Pulaski State Prison. The findings also noted that of 456 sexual-abuse allegations recorded systemwide in 2022, only 35 were substantiated — a 7.7% substantiation rate — and that a May 2022 review by PREA Auditors of America of 388 PREA investigation files found not one met the law’s standards. Georgia has never submitted a PREA certification of full compliance in the law’s two-decade history.

Food Safety Failures: Failing Inspections and Systemic Hazards

Kitchen conditions at Pulaski have fluctuated dangerously. On January 29, 2026, a routine inspection by the Georgia Department of Public Health gave the facility a score of 67 — a failing Grade F — citing eight violations, including failure to ensure clean hands and adequate handwashing facilities. A follow-up inspection eight days later, on February 6, recorded a score of 96, but the rapid swing underscores the volatility of sanitation. Previous routine inspections yielded grades of C (73 in August 2025, 78 in September 2025) and B (83 in February 2025, 82 in June 2024). GPS has separately documented sewage backups and a nonfunctional handwashing sink in kitchen areas at the facility, while an earlier inspection had flagged the presence of insects, rodents, or other animals.

These failures are not isolated. GPS’s investigation “Dunked, Stacked, and Served” — fact-checked and published in 2026 — documented a systemic pattern of food-service sanitation collapse across Georgia prisons: tray-sanitizing dishwashers broken for months, chemical-barrel washing of trays, roach and rodent infestations inside kitchen equipment, and meals served on visibly contaminated surfaces. The investigation found that high DPH inspection scores can coexist with sustained witness reports of equipment failure and contamination, in part because inspections are scheduled walkthroughs that do not assess equipment under load. Pulaski’s own inspection record, with its sharp swings between failing and passing scores, illustrates the same dynamic: a kitchen that could be cleaned up for a follow-up visit but whose conditions were failing only days earlier.

Deaths, Violence, and the Hollowing Out of Supervision

Underlying every crisis at Pulaski is the larger collapse of the Georgia prison system. GPS has independently tracked 1,859 deaths in GDC custody since 2020, including 30 at Pulaski State Prison. Officer vacancy rates across Georgia’s prisons have run between 49% and 60% for years, and the October 2024 DOJ findings letter explicitly concluded that “the leadership of the Georgia Department of Corrections has lost control of its facilities.” Violence is propelled by a combination of severe understaffing and the documented dominance of security threat groups: approximately 31% of the system’s incarcerated population are validated members of gangs, more than double the national average, and the DOJ found that gangs effectively control access to phones, showers, food, and bed assignments in multiple facilities. At Pulaski, gang extortion has been a recurring hazard. GPS reporting published in 2025 documented the case of Pamela Dixon, who paid more than $10,000 in gang extortion demands after her daughter was threatened inside the facility.

Against this backdrop, the recent pattern of retaliation, lockdowns, and medical neglect takes on a deeper significance. The Georgia Department of Corrections’ own numbers, published by GPS in a 2025 analysis of classification drift, show that medium-security prisons like Pulaski are now functioning as high-security facilities, absorbing people whom the system cannot safely house anywhere else. Pulaski’s population of 1,186, packed into a facility originally designed for 500, reflects that pressure. When a water shutoff or a lockdown deprives a dormitory of basic sanitation, the consequences are not merely uncomfortable — they are stacked on top of a facility already defined by lethal medical failures, documented sexual violence, and a collapsed supervisory structure.

Sources

This analysis draws on reporting from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution; inspection records from the Georgia Department of Public Health; GDC personnel and settlement data; the October 2024 findings of the U.S. Department of Justice civil rights investigation; and Georgia Prisoners’ Speak’s own investigative articles, including “Dunked, Stacked, and Served” and the GPS investigation into Dr. Yvon Nazaire’s tenure. Inmate and family accounts collected by GPS staff, as well as internal intelligence signals, inform the narrative of retaliation and unsafe conditions under the current administration.