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SMITH STATE PRISON

State Prison Close Security GDC (Georgia Dept. of Corrections) Male
49 Source Articles 3 Events

Facility Information

Original Design Capacity
750 (at 146% capacity)
Bed Capacity
1,526 beds
Current Population
1,093
Active Lifers
291 (26.6% of population) · Aug 2026 GDC report
Life Without Parole
194 (17.7%)
Why design capacity matters: Adding beds to a prison does not increase medical facilities, educational programs, kitchen capacity, counseling services, or recreation areas. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Plata that severe overcrowding beyond design capacity violates the 8th Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
Read: Brown v. Plata - A Legal Roadmap for Georgia's Prison Crisis →
Address
9676 Hwy 301 North, Glennville, GA 30427
Phone
(912) 654-5000
Fax
(912) 654-5305
Mailing Address
P.O. Box 726, Glennville, GA 30427
County
Tattnall County
Opened
1993
Operator
GDC (Georgia Dept. of Corrections)

Leadership & Accountability (as of 2026 records)

Officials currently holding positional authority at this facility, with deaths attributed to GPS-tracked records during their leadership tenure. Inclusion reflects role-based accountability, not legal findings of personal culpability. Death counts shown as facility / career.

RoleNameSinceDeaths
this facility / career
Warden (facility lead) Mims, Charles Michael2025-07-164 / 46
DEPUTY WARDEN (facility deputy) Warren, Willesha2022-01-0126 / 26
DEPUTY WARDEN (facility deputy) Carver, Keenan2024-01-0110 / 10
DEPUTY WARDEN (facility deputy) Kennedy, Ashley L2024-01-0110 / 10
DEPUTY WARDEN (facility deputy) Foulks, Rodney2024-01-017 / 7
Deputy Warden of Security (facility deputy) Edwards, Brianna2026-07-01— / —

About

Smith State Prison in Glennville, a close-security men's facility, has recorded 38 deaths since 2020—18 homicides—amid chronic understaffing, a RICO-indicted former warden, the 2024 shooting of a kitchen worker with a smuggled gun, and multiple murders ordered from inside its walls.

Mortality Statistics

40 deaths documented at this facility from 2020 to present.

Deaths by Year

  • 2026: 5
  • 2025: 1
  • 2024: 6
  • 2023: 11
  • 2022: 5
  • 2021: 7
  • 2020: 5

View all deaths at this facility →

County Public Health Department

Food service and sanitation at SMITH STATE PRISON fall under the jurisdiction of the Tattnall County Environmental Health Department. Incarcerated people cannot choose where they eat — public health inspectors carry an elevated responsibility to hold this kitchen to the same standards applied to any restaurant.

Contact

Title
EH Specialist
Name
Lance Dasher
Address
P.O. Box 353
Glennville, GA 30427
Phone
(855) 473-4374
Email
Lance.Dasher@dph.ga.gov
Website
Visit department website →

Why this matters

GPS has documented black mold on chow-hall ceilings, cold and contaminated trays, spoiled milk, and pest contamination at Georgia prisons. The Department of Justice's 2024 report confirmed deaths from dehydration and untreated diabetes tied to food and water deprivation. Advance-notice inspections let facilities stage temporary fixes that disappear once inspectors leave.

Unannounced inspections by the county health department are one of the few outside checks on kitchen conditions behind the fence.

How you can help

Write to the county inspector and request an unannounced inspection of the kitchen and food service operation at this facility. A short, respectful letter citing Georgia food-safety regulations is more powerful than you think — inspectors respond to public concern.

Email the Inspector

Food Safety Inspections

Georgia Department of Public Health

Latest score: 72 (Feb 16, 2026)
View DPH report ↗

What the score doesn't measure. DPH grades kitchen compliance on inspection day — food storage, temperatures, pest control. It does not grade whether today's trays are clean. GPS reporting has found broken dishwashers at most Georgia state prisons we've documented; trays go out wet, stacked, and visibly moldy — including at facilities with recent scores near 100.

Who inspects. Most Georgia state prisons sit in rural counties — often with fewer than 20,000 people, several with fewer than 10,000. The environmental health inspector lives in that community and often knows the kitchen staff personally. Rural inspection regimes don't have the structural independence you'd expect in a city-sized health department. Read the scores accordingly.

Read the investigation: “Dunked, Stacked and Served: Why Georgia Prison Trays Are Making People Sick”

Recent inspections

DateScorePurpose
Feb 16, 202672Routine
Jun 27, 202585Routine
Jan 19, 202482Routine
Jun 29, 202384Routine

Source: Georgia Department of Public Health — data last refreshed April 24, 2026. Search all Georgia inspections ↗

Analysis written on August 9, 2026.

Smith State Prison sits in Tattnall County, a close-security men’s facility that opened in 1993 with a design capacity of 750 but currently holds 1,093 people. It has become one of the most violent and scrutinized prisons in Georgia. GPS has independently tracked 1,860 deaths in GDC custody since 2020; 38 of those occurred here—18 ruled homicides, 7 suicides, and 7 still pending classification. The killings of a corrections officer, an 88-year-old man shot in his bed in a case of mistaken identity, and a young Aramark kitchen worker gunned down with a smuggled firearm have each drawn national attention. In May 2026, a Tattnall County grand jury indicted the former warden on RICO and bribery charges, alleging the prison was run as a criminal enterprise. This page traces how those events converged.

A Warden’s Indictment and a Prison Run as a Criminal Enterprise

On May 12, 2026, after 39 months of investigation, a Tattnall County grand jury returned a six-count felony indictment against former Warden Brian Adams, charging him with violation of Georgia’s RICO Act, making false statements, tampering with evidence, and two counts of violating his oath as a public officer. The indictment capped a years-long probe into what the Atlanta Journal-Constitution described as Adams’s participation in a multimillion-dollar contraband scheme known as the Saint Laurent Squad—a criminal organization led by inmate Nathan Weekes that prosecutors say operated freely inside the prison.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Adams allegedly accepted U.S. currency bribes through a pattern of racketeering activity associated with the contraband operation. The Georgia Virtue detailed the civil suit’s allegations: that Adams and former corrections officer Ireon Moore “facilitated a criminal conspiracy to kill a non-complicit correctional officer” by allowing illegal mobile phones and other contraband to flow unchecked. According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Adams provided false statements in an April 2022 interview when he denied having been solicited or bribed by any GDC inmate in the preceding decade.

The scope of the alleged corruption was staggering. Weekes is accused of orchestrating three murders from inside the prison—one, the 2021 shooting death of 88-year-old Bobby Kicklighter, was a case of mistaken identity, a hit meant for a correctional officer who lived next door. Two other murders outside the prison are also tied to the same contraband enterprise. The warden’s arrest in February 2023 on bribery, criminal attempt to violate RICO, and related charges did not end the crisis: GPS records show that staff misconduct signals at Smith State Prison surged again in May 2026, with seven distinct sources flagging named-staff allegations during the month the grand jury returned its indictment.

Adams was not an isolated case. The AJC has documented more than 425 GDC employees arrested for on-the-job crimes since 2018, the majority for contraband smuggling. At Smith, the rot extended from the warden’s office to the back gate, where a former corrections officer told the AJC that the supply entrance lacked a metal detector, potentially allowing weapons to enter undetected.

Homicides Behind the Walls: The Killings of Bobby Kicklighter, Aureon Grace, and Many Others

The dead at Smith State Prison form a ledger of extreme violence. GPS’s mortality records count 38 deaths since 2020—18 of them homicides. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which has tracked GDC mortality records and death certificates, identified 37 homicides systemwide in 2023 alone, a record year in which Smith accounted for at least 11 deaths, including the stabbing of Correctional Officer Robert Clark and a spate of fatal inmate-on-inmate assaults.

The killing that broke through to national headlines was not inside the razor wire. In 2021, Bobby Kicklighter, 88, was shot to death in his bed in Glennville. Investigators determined that Smith inmate Nathan Weekes had ordered a hit on a correctional officer; the gunmen went to the wrong house. The AJC reported that Weekes’s contraband network used smuggled cell phones to coordinate the murder from segregation.

On June 16, 2024, a gun made its way inside the prison again. Inmate Jaydrekus Hart obtained a loaded firearm—investigators believe it was delivered by drone—and shot 24-year-old Aramark food service employee Aureon Shavea Grace in the prison kitchen at 4:30 a.m. before turning the gun on himself. The shooting triggered an immediate systemwide lockdown and the cancellation of all visitation, and Governor Brian Kemp announced a system-wide assessment by the consultancy Guidehouse Inc. The AJC later reported that prison staff had been repeatedly warned by inmates that a gun was on the premises, yet no lockdown or extensive search was initiated. There were no guards in the area where Grace died.

Other homicides at the facility include Desmond Hill, 35, strangled in April 2021—he had called his mother the day before saying his cellmate threatened to kill him; Hiwatha Abdulcah Hakeem Jr., 26, stabbed by four prisoners with a known history of violence in April 2021, his family alleging that officials failed to provide timely medical care; and Anthony Joseph Zino III, 71, found badly decomposed in April 2023, having likely been dead for days before anyone noticed. In June 2023, Quenton Mayo, 30, was stabbed in the neck; in July, Justin Smith, 37, died from an epidural hematoma after being punched and falling; in August, Calvin Denson, 31, died from a stab wound to the chest in a fight involving seven inmates. The AJC’s reporting also documented the 2020 assault in which a prisoner was tied up, beaten, waterboarded, and sexually assaulted by his cellmate—bars of soap that had apparently been used in the assault fell from his body when he was hospitalized.

Four of the men who died at Smith in 2023 alone were killed after the warden’s initial arrest, suggesting that the facility’s violence was not solely dependent on Adams’s leadership but deeply embedded in its operational collapse.

Staffing Collapse: One Officer for 600 Men

The most frequently cited number in reporting on Smith State Prison is not a body count but a vacancy rate. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in January 2025 that two-thirds of correctional officer positions at the facility were unfilled—just 53 officers where the design called for 160. A year earlier, The Marshall Project had documented the consequences in harrowing detail through the experience of former officer Andrew Phillips.

Phillips told The Marshall Project that he was the sole officer assigned to an area housing 600 men. When inmates set mattresses on fire, he discovered that none of the building’s fire extinguishers worked. He worked 11 consecutive days, after which he was called to escort a stabbing victim to the hospital. The environment, he said, was “too brutal, too disgusting.” Phillips resigned from Smith in early 2023. The same reporting revealed that between 2019 and 2022, Georgia’s overtime spending for prison workers ballooned to more than $4 million, over 11 times the pre-pandemic level, as the staffing force shrank by roughly a third.

The human consequences are directly visible in the mortality data. When a body goes undiscovered for five days—as happened to Anthony Zino—it is a staffing failure. When incarcerated people told the AJC they endured long waits for medical appointments, went weeks without recreation, and struggled to obtain basic hygiene supplies, they were describing the downstream effects of the shortage. Attorney General Chris Carr’s office acknowledged before the state Senate’s Department of Corrections Facilities Study Committee that the agency arrested 69 staff, 204 inmates, and 554 civilians for contraband in a single year, but the underlying driver—understaffing that leaves a vacuum for gangs to fill—remained.

GPS has further documented systemwide that officer vacancies have run between 49% and 60% for years, and that the Department of Justice’s October 2024 findings letter explicitly concluded that GDC leadership “has lost control of its facilities” and placed “too much blame on gangs and insufficient emphasis on understaffing.” At Smith, the DOJ’s framing reads as an understatement.

A Gun in the Kitchen: Contraband, Gangs, and the Loss of Control

The Saint Laurent Squad investigation and the shooting of Aureon Grace exposed a facility in which the boundary between the prison and the street had collapsed. Inmate Nathan Weekes is alleged to have led a contraband enterprise that moved cell phones, narcotics, weapons, designer clothing, jewelry, and tobacco, with the warden himself on the payroll. A separate drug operation run by inmate Ricardo Silva coordinated meth shipments from Mexico even while Silva was in segregation 23 hours a day, resulting in a 35-year federal sentence. Another inmate, David Allen, was coordinating with the Ghostface Gangsters to traffic drugs while serving a life sentence.

The contraband flood is not theoretical. During 2023, seven shakedowns at Smith State Prison yielded 1,509 weapons, 694 cell phones, 854 phone chargers, 7.55 kilos of marijuana, and 12.53 kilos of tobacco, according to GDC data cited by the AJC. A year later, the agency testified to state lawmakers that it had tallied over 430 drone reports in a single 12-month period, and investigators alleged one such drone delivered the firearm that Jaydrekus Hart used.

On April 1, 2026, a gang-related altercation at Smith triggered a lockdown of every GDC facility in the state. Two inmates were airlifted to hospitals; officials told WTOC they believed the fight was gang-driven. GPS records across multiple sources corroborate that the April violence followed weeks of escalating tension, with multiple separate reports of inmate assaults on staff in the preceding months. The altercation was contained to one dorm, but its statewide ripple effect—lockdowns, cancelled visits, helicopter evacuations—illustrated how thoroughly the loss of control at Smith had become a systemwide vulnerability.

Food Safety in Freefall: From ‘B’ to ‘C’

While the violence drew headlines, a quieter hazard was mounting in the kitchen. Georgia Department of Public Health inspection scores at Smith State Prison declined steadily: 84 (B) in June 2023, 82 (B) in January 2024, 85 (B) in June 2025, and then a sharp drop to 72 (C) in February 2026. The 2026 routine inspection cited nine violations, including failures in proper cold holding temperatures, food labeling, and the provision of accurate thermometers. The 2023 inspection had flagged inadequate handwashing facilities and contamination prevention—problems that evidently persisted.

These scores exist within a larger pattern that GPS has documented across the GDC system. The state spends approximately $1.69 per person per day on food, or about 60 cents per meal, against the FDA’s Thrifty Food Plan estimate of roughly $10 per day for a nutritionally adequate diet. In May 2026, The Marshall Project independently reported on rats in kitchens, insects in food, moldy trays, and visible malnutrition across Georgia facilities. GPS’s own investigation “Dunked, Stacked, and Served” documented how broken dishwashers and chemical-barrel washing of trays—conditions hidden from scheduled inspections—coexist with high health department scores at many prisons. The declining score at Smith suggests that the routine inspection process, however imperfect, is registering deterioration that matches the broader collapse of infrastructure and oversight.

Legal Reckoning: Settlements, Lawsuits, and the Fight for Accountability

The toll of violence and neglect at Smith State Prison has produced a growing body of litigation and state liability payouts. Georgia Department of Administrative Services settlement records, obtained through open records, show payouts tied to Smith incidents dating back a decade: $1.45 million in 2020 for the death of Christopher Heath, $450,000 in 2023 for Julia Roberts, $75,000 for Ricardo Tavera Jaramillo in 2014, $15,000 for Rufus Newberry in 2018, and $3,472 for Micki Antonio Brown in 2022. The Heath settlement, the largest on the GDC ledger for this facility, was linked to a documented death.

In 2025, Deshonda Hagins filed suit in Fulton County State Court, alleging prison staff were repeatedly warned about the gun on the premises but failed to act. The family of Bobby Kicklighter brought a wrongful death action against Adams and Moore, asserting they facilitated the criminal enterprise that led to Kicklighter’s murder. A separate civil suit in Tattnall County State Court seeks damages from Adams and Moore for allegedly allowing contraband and conspiring to kill a non-complicit officer. In January 2025, the family of Hiwatha Abdulcah Hakeem Jr. sued, claiming officials knew his attackers had a history of violence and failed to provide timely medical care. And in May 2026, GPS records show three distinct lawsuit filings linked to Smith State Prison in a single month—an alignment that corresponds with the grand jury’s indictment and the surge in staff misconduct allegations.

The facility’s litigation history sits within a broader legal landscape: the Southern Center for Human Rights sued GDC in 2021 over poor conditions statewide, and the U.S. Department of Justice has been investigating Georgia’s prisons since September 2021. In October 2024, the DOJ issued findings that the system violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, citing deliberate indifference to violence and the effective control of multiple facilities by gangs. At Smith State Prison, those findings are not an abstraction—they are the ledger of the dead.

Sources

This analysis draws on reporting from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Marshall Project, Georgia Public Broadcasting, The Georgia Virtue, and WTOC; federal and state court filings; Georgia Department of Public Health inspection records; Georgia Department of Administrative Services settlement ledgers; GDC and GBI official statements; GPS’s own investigative reporting, mortality database, and intelligence records; and on-the-record testimony from former GDC officer Andrew Phillips. Inmate and family accounts collected by GPS staff informed the aggregate assessment of violence patterns and staff misconduct.

Recent reports (62)

Source-attributed observations and allegations from news coverage and reports submitted to GPS. Each entry credits its source.

  • ALLEGATION According to The Georgia Virtue Published: Jun 22, 2026
    Adams and Moore facilitated a criminal enterprise within the prison that led to Kicklighter's murder.
    "The lawsuit, filed by the family of Bobby C. Kicklighter, alleges that Adams and Moore facilitated a criminal enterprise operating from within the prison, which led to Kicklighter's murder in a botched murder-for-hire scheme in 2021."
    Read source →
  • ALLEGATION According to The Georgia Virtue Published: Jun 22, 2026
    Adams and Moore facilitated a criminal enterprise within the prison that led to Kicklighter's murder.
    "The lawsuit, filed by the family of Bobby C. Kicklighter, alleges that Adams and Moore facilitated a criminal enterprise operating from within the prison, which led to Kicklighter's murder in a botched murder-for-hire scheme in 2021."
    Read source →
  • ALLEGATION According to WTOC Published: May 1, 2025
    A former employee sexually assaulted a corrections employee.
    "A former employee of Smith State Prison in Georgia has been charged with sexual assault involving a corrections employee."
    Read source →
  • ALLEGATION According to The Georgia Virtue Published: May 13, 2026
    Adams allegedly participated in a RICO organization (Yves Saint Laurent Squad) and accepted currency bribes through a pattern of racketeering associated with the enterprise run by inmate Nathan Weekes.
    "They also contended that Adams participated in a RICO organization, being Yves Saint Laurent Squad run by then-Smith State Prison inmate Nathan Weekes, and he committed the offenses of Bribery and False Statements and Writings in furtherance of the RICO organization. Adams, they said, was bribed when he accepted currency through a pattern of racketeering associated with the RICO enterprise."
    Read source →
  • ALLEGATION According to The Georgia Virtue Published: May 13, 2026
    Agents alleged that Adams provided false statements in an April 13, 2022 interview when he stated he had not been solicited or bribed by a GDC inmate in the past 10 years.
    "Agents alleged that Adams provided false statements in an April 13, 2022 interview when he stated he has not been solicited or bribed by a Georgia Department of Corrections inmate in the past 10 years."
    Read source →

Timeline (136)

June 22, 2026 (approx.)
Georgia Court of Appeals declines appeal other
The Georgia Court of Appeals declined to hear an appeal from Brian Adams and Ireon Moore, citing lack of jurisdiction due to the use of an incorrect appellate procedure after the new direct-appeal statute took effect.
Source: The Georgia Virtue
June 22, 2026
Adams and Moore facilitated a criminal enterprise within the prison that led to Kicklighter's murder. report
June 22, 2026
Adams and Moore facilitated a criminal enterprise within the prison that led to Kicklighter's murder. report
May 13, 2026
Tattnall County Grand Jury Indicts Former Smith State Prison Warden arrest
A Tattnall County grand jury indicted a former warden from Smith State Prison on Tuesday.
Source: The Georgia Virtue
May 13, 2026 (approx.)
Civil Lawsuit Filed Against Brian Adams and Ireon Moore in Tattnall County State Court lawsuit
A lawsuit filed in Tattnall County State Court seeks damages from former Warden Brian Adams and former Corrections Officer Ireon Moore, alleging they allowed contraband including cell phones, narcotics, and weapons, and facilitated a criminal conspiracy to kill a non-complicit…
Source: Unknown source
May 13, 2026
Adams allegedly participated in a RICO organization (Yves Saint Laurent Squad) and accepted currency bribes through a pattern of racketeering associated with the enterprise run by inmate Nathan Weekes. report
May 13, 2026
Agents alleged that Adams provided false statements in an April 13, 2022 interview when he stated he had not been solicited or bribed by a GDC inmate in the past 10 years. report
May 13, 2026
The civil suit alleges Adams should have noticed contraband including cell phones, narcotics, weapons, designer brand clothing, jewelry, and tobacco at Smith State Prison. report

Source Articles (40)

Two Commanders Say Georgia Hides Its Prison Staffing Crisis
Jul 15, 2026
The Game They Learned: How GDC's Closed Promotion Pipeline Made Its Own Wardens — and Its Own Indictments
May 16, 2026
El juego que aprendieron: Cómo el sistema cerrado de promoción del GDC creó a sus propios directores — y sus propias acusaciones
May 16, 2026
Dunked, Stacked, and Served: Why Georgia Prison Trays Are Making People Sick
Apr 10, 2026
The Man Who Turned On the Heat
Apr 6, 2026

Former leadership

Officials who previously held leadership roles at this facility.

RoleNameTenureDeaths
this facility / career
WARDEN 3 (facility lead) Beasley, Jacob2023-01-01 → 2024-12-3117 / 51
Warden (facility lead) Adams, Brian2019-10-01 → 2023-02-0817 / 17
CORRECTIONAL SUPERINTENDENT (facility lead) Todd, Curtis J2025-01-01 → 2025-01-31— / 1
Warden (facility lead) Mims, Charles2026-07-05 → present— / —
DEPUTY WARDEN (facility deputy) McFarlane, Andrew M2019-01-01 → 2022-12-3117 / 51
Deputy Warden of Security (facility deputy) Henderson, Marcus2019-01-01 → 2023-01-0117 / 17
DEPUTY WARDEN (facility deputy) COX, Eric2021-01-01 → 2021-12-317 / 51
DEPUTY WARDEN (facility deputy) Epperson, Alicia2022-01-01 → 2022-12-315 / 5
DEPUTY WARDEN (facility deputy) Brown, Vashti J2019-01-01 → 2020-12-315 / 5
DEPUTY WARDEN (facility deputy) Smith, Tarmarshe A2016-01-01 → 2017-12-31— / 36

View full GDC Leadership Accountability page →

Location

9676 Hwy 301 North, Glennville, GA 30427 31.97303, -81.91568

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Aerial View

Aerial view of SMITH STATE PRISON

Architecture documents what the building was designed to hold. See the system-wide receipts at gps.press/warehouse.