PULASKI STATE PRISON

Analysis written on July 12, 2026.

A History of Fatal Medical Neglect

Pulaski State Prison has cost the state over $1.3 million in liability payouts for deaths and injuries that trace directly to the denial of adequate medical care. In 2015 the Georgia Department of Administrative Services paid $925,000 to the family of Bonnie Rocheleau, who developed pneumonia inside the facility and died after staff failed to get her the treatment she needed. The same year the state settled with the family of Kimery Finger for $300,000. The Atlanta Journal‑Constitution reported in January 2025 that Mollianne Fischer was left in a vegetative state after Pulaski failed to provide adequate medical attention, and that Rocheleau’s case was part of a broader pattern.

GPS reporting has documented accounts of a contract physician hired by Georgia despite a known history of malpractice deaths in New York, and who, families say, denied women care while being praised for cutting costs. GPS’s own investigative work describes multiple deaths on that physician’s watch, and the state’s response—a raise for the doctor while women were dying—became the subject of a sustained advocacy campaign. The Georgia Department of Public Health does not score the quality of clinical care, but the string of settlements and the AJC’s reporting make the lethal consequences plain.

Violence, Understaffing, and the Erosion of Basic Safety

In July 2023, eleven incarcerated women used broomsticks, a crowbar, metal spray, shanks, and locks to destroy property in a disturbance that required nine security staff and chemical spray to quell. The AJC described the incident as one of many eruptions inside a facility where officers and staff “did not notice a problem until someone from outside called to report a stabbing.” The prisoner who was stabbed reported that she had been assaulted hours earlier by ten people who stomped, hit, and kicked her. Safe‑housing requests following assaults were denied, witnesses told GPS.

A firsthand account published by Georgia Prisoners’ Speak — Tell My Story, written by a woman who was incarcerated at Pulaski from 2023 through July 2025, describes a facility where the security bubble was empty and dormitories went for hours without any officer present. “When something happened—a medical emergency, a fight, someone overdosing on K2—other inmates had to call their families and have them call the facility to send help. That’s how we got help. We called our mothers.” The writer recounts fights that lasted more than thirty minutes, with blood and urine left on the floor, and documents persistent failures in the block‑movement system that caused women to miss medical, dental, educational, and mental‑health appointments day after day.

The U.S. Department of Justice civil rights investigation into Georgia’s prisons specifically documented constitutional violations at Pulaski State Prison between 2022 and 2023, including at‑knifepoint sexual assaults that the DOJ concluded were part of a systemwide pattern in which gangs control housing units while the state fails to protect incarcerated people. Georgia has never submitted a PREA certification of full compliance in the law’s two‑decade history; only 7.7% of sexual‑abuse allegations recorded systemwide in 2022 were substantiated, and GDC’s own consultants found that not one of the 388 PREA investigation files they reviewed met the legal standard.

Food‑Safety Crises and the Inspection‑Score Mirage

On January 29, 2026, a routine inspection by the Georgia Department of Public Health gave Pulaski’s kitchen a failing score of 67. Violations included hands not being properly washed, inadequate handwashing facilities, and plumbing and backflow‑device problems. Just eight months earlier, in August 2025, a routine inspection scored 73 (a C), with violations for handwashing and cold‑holding temperatures; a September 2025 follow‑up improved only to 78. The February 2026 follow‑up jumped to 96—an A—even though the same inspector cited ongoing plumbing issues.

Those scores exist inside a system where, GPS has documented, tray‑sanitizing dishwashers can be broken for long stretches, roach and rodent infestation are routine, and meals are served on visibly contaminated trays. The state spends approximately $1.69 per person per day on food—roughly $0.60 per meal. The Marshall Project independently reported in May 2026 on rats in kitchens, insects in food, and moldy trays across Georgia. GPS’s investigation “Dunked, Stacked, and Served” found that inspection scores fail to capture real‑time sanitation because walkthroughs do not assess equipment under load and because, in small‑county settings, the same personnel who work in the facility sometimes overlap with those conducting the inspection.

Leadership Under Warden Jackson and Reports of Retaliation

Wendy Jackson was appointed warden of Pulaski State Prison on April 16, 2025, after serving as Deputy Warden of Administration at the facility. Within months, GPS began receiving reports from families and incarcerated people describing a pattern of intimidation, retaliation, and extended lockdowns. Multiple inmate witnesses reported that a staff member locked down an incarcerated person in retaliation for that person contacting facility leadership; that an individual’s water was cut off for days during a lockdown; that clean clothing and shower access were denied for extended periods; and that personal property was confiscated with the stated intent not to return it.

The Tell My Story account corroborates the breakdown of the grievance process: “We’d be put on lock down. … The ones being punished were the innocent ones.” It also documents that 90 percent of the time, no officer arrived to escort women to appointments, and that the facility was missing so many mental‑health appointments it had to assign an officer to each dorm to bring people out later. GPS staff directed families to collect police reports, hospital records, protective orders, and photographic documentation of alleged abuse, and the organization’s source‑protection policy was formally extended to cover incarcerated and vulnerable sources at Pulaski.

Staff Misconduct and Sexual Abuse

In May 2024, Deputy Warden Alonzo L. McMillian was arrested at the facility and booked into the Pulaski County jail on charges of having a sexual relationship with a prisoner, including improper sexual contact on February 24 and 25. The AJC reported the arrest and noted that a second supervisor, Clark, was also terminated after an arrest for sexual contact with a prisoner. McMillian was released on $10,000 bond. The DOJ investigation had already documented that sexual assault inside Georgia prisons is “rampant,” and that LGBTI individuals in particular are not reasonably protected.

A Trail of Settlements: The State Pays for Harm

Georgia’s DOAS Risk Management settlement ledger records five payouts tied to Pulaski State Prison since 2013. In addition to the $925,000 Rocheleau settlement and $300,000 Finger settlement, the state paid $85,000 to Makayah Howard in a 2024 case, $15,900 to Dante Coleman for a 2018 incident, and $30,000 to Kari A. Quinn for a 2013 incident. Together these five settlements total over $1,355,900. Each one reflects a finding by the state, through its own risk‑management process, that the harm was serious enough to warrant a payout—a quiet ledger entry of what the public record and witness accounts describe in far starker terms.

Sources

This analysis draws on reporting by the Atlanta Journal‑Constitution, Georgia Department of Public Health food‑safety inspections, the Georgia Department of Administrative Services settlement ledger obtained through open‑records requests, the U.S. Department of Justice’s civil rights investigation findings, firsthand published narratives from Georgia Prisoners’ Speak — Tell My Story, GPS’s own investigative reporting and systemic analyses, and accounts collected by GPS staff from incarcerated witnesses and family members.