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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 Michael2025-01-014 / 36
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, Georgia, a close-security men's facility, has recorded 18 homicides since 2020, with a former warden indicted for operating a RICO contraband enterprise and a firearm smuggled in that killed a kitchen worker.

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 2, 2026.

Smith State Prison, located in Glennville, Tattnall County, is a close-security prison for men that opened in 1993. Designed for 750 but expanded to hold up to 1,526, the facility currently houses 1,106 incarcerated individuals. It has emerged as one of the most violent and dysfunctional institutions in the Georgia Department of Corrections, a system already under federal investigation for widespread Eighth Amendment violations. GPS’s mortality database records 38 deaths at Smith since 2020, 18 of them homicides — a toll driven by a convergence of corrupt leadership, severe understaffing, and the unchecked dominance of prison gangs.

The Yves Saint Laurent Squad: How a Prison Warden’s Contraband Empire Unraveled

Smith State Prison became the epicenter of one of the most brazen contraband and racketeering schemes in recent GDC history. Former Warden Brian Adams was arrested in February 2023 and later indicted by a Tattnall County grand jury in May 2026 on six felony counts: violation of Georgia’s RICO Act, bribery, making false statements (two counts), tampering with evidence (two counts), and two counts of violating his oath as a public officer. The indictment, presented by the Georgia Attorney General’s Office after a 39-month wait, followed an investigation into the “Yves Saint Laurent Squad,” a prison-based enterprise allegedly led by inmate Nathan Weekes.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Adams accepted U.S. currency through a pattern of racketeering activity, with Weekes and his associates orchestrating at least three murders from inside the prison using contraband cell phones. Among them was the 2021 shooting death of 88-year-old Bobby Kicklighter, killed in his bed in a case of mistaken identity — Weekes had allegedly ordered a hit on a correctional officer who lived next door. The Georgia Virtue detailed that Adams remained warden for some 18 months after GDC learned of the murders and that he had falsely denied, during a 2022 GBI interview, ever being solicited or bribed by an inmate. A civil suit filed in Tattnall County State Court in May 2026 also names former Correctional Officer Ireon Moore, alleging the two facilitated a criminal conspiracy to kill a non-complicit officer by allowing cell phones, narcotics, and weapons into the facility.

The AJC further noted that GDC does not research the credit or financial histories of its applicants, leaving financially vulnerable employees susceptible to corruption — a vulnerability that Adams’ case exemplified. GDC’s own wireless-device policy (SOP 204.09) requires tracking of all communication devices at security checkpoints, yet as the AJC documented, contraband cell phones remained ubiquitous. Inmate Weekes’ reported operation led to criminal charges that shook the agency; meanwhile, the Georgia Court of Appeals declined to hear Adams and Moore’s appeal in June 2026, clearing the way for trial.

A Cascade of Violence: Homicides, a Smuggled Firearm, and a Corrections Officer Killed

The violence at Smith State Prison is neither sporadic nor isolated. GPS’s records show 18 homicides since 2020, a count that includes the killing of a correctional officer, a food service worker, and numerous incarcerated men. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s homicide-tracking coverage documented the deadly sequence: in 2020, a prisoner was tied up, beaten, waterboarded, and sexually assaulted by his cellmate, with bars of soap used in the assault falling from his body at the hospital; that same year, Taylor Harrison Brooks and John Bretleir Reyes Cardona were stabbed to death. In 2021, Desmond Hill was strangled after calling his mother to say his cellmate had threatened him; Hiwatha Abdulcah Hakeem Jr. was stabbed by four prisoners who, a lawsuit contended, had known histories of violence and were not adequately supervised. Justin Nathaniel Wilkerson was asphyxiated, and his mother later testified about his mental health struggles and prior attacks. In 2023, Correctional Officer Robert Danford Clark, 42, was fatally stabbed with a homemade weapon. Anthony Joseph Zino III, 71, was found badly decomposed in his cell — his body had likely lain dead for days before discovery, a failure attributed to chronic understaffing.

June 2024 brought an entirely new level of security failure. Inmate Jaydrekus Hart obtained a loaded handgun and shot 24-year-old Aramark food service employee Aureon Shavea Grace to death in the prison kitchen before turning the gun on himself. Investigators believe the firearm was smuggled in by drone, though state officials have not publicly explained how it entered the facility. A lawsuit filed by Grace’s mother, Deshonda Hagins, alleges that prison staff had been repeatedly warned about the gun but failed to lock down the facility or conduct a thorough search. The shooting prompted a system-wide lockdown and led Governor Brian Kemp to announce a 12-month assessment of the entire corrections system by consultants Guidehouse Inc.

After the shooting, the AJC reported that Hart had been permitted to violate rules with impunity and that no guards were present in the kitchen at the time. The weapon’s presence inside a close-security prison underscored the near-total loss of control that the DOJ would later cite in its statewide findings. In 2025, a former Smith employee was charged with sexually assaulting a corrections employee, further widening the staff-misconduct record.

The lethal pattern persisted. In April 2026, a gang-related altercation in a Smith dorm left two inmates injured badly enough to require airlift to hospitals and triggered a system-wide lockdown of all GDC facilities. GPS received multiple reports from sources inside the facility that gangs had been discussing coordinated retaliation against staff, and the altercation appeared to fit that profile. GPS records three additional recent deaths at Smith: Nicholas Shafer, 24, died from homicide in February 2026; Dwayne Albritton, 65, from medical neglect in March 2026; and Dreeonnie Lee Hart, 25, died in May 2026, with cause still unknown.

Staffing Collapse and the Rise of Gang Control

The violence at Smith cannot be separated from its staggering staffing deficit. By early 2025, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that only 53 correctional officers remained at a facility designed for 160 — a two-thirds vacancy rate. Former officer Andrew Phillips, profiled by The Marshall Project, described being the sole officer assigned to an area of 600 men, facing a mass mattress fire with empty extinguishers and having to escort a stabbing victim to the hospital after 11 consecutive days of work. He and colleagues described the environment as “too brutal, too disgusting,” and Phillips ultimately resigned. The same investigation found that overstretched staff failed to notice Zino’s decomposing body for five days and that guards working alone had watched fatal attacks without immediately intervening.

This staffing collapse is a systemic feature. GPS has documented that officer vacancies system-wide run between 49% and 60%, with Georgia ranking last among states in correctional officer pay. The DOJ’s October 2024 findings letter concluded that “the leadership of the Georgia Department of Corrections has lost control of its facilities” and that GDC placed too much blame on gangs and not enough on understaffing. Approximately 31% of the incarcerated population are validated members of 315 different security threat groups — more than double the national average — and both the DOJ and the Guidehouse assessment found that gangs effectively run multiple facilities, controlling access to phones, showers, food, and bed assignments.

At Smith, that dynamic was dramatically apparent. The contraband empire orchestrated by Weekes relied not only on bribes to the warden but also on widespread staff complicity. The AJC documented that over 425 GDC employees had been arrested for on-the-job crimes since 2018, many for smuggling contraband, and that corrupt officers were rapidly replaced by new ones. GPS’s intelligence monitoring has continued to flag multiple reports of gang-coordinated threats and violence against staff at Smith throughout early 2026, a pattern corroborated by the April lockdown and the earlier indictments. The systemic GPS finding — that staffing collapse plus gang assumption of facility control is the integrated structural driver of violence — is starkly visible here.

Food Safety Fails and the Broader Sanitation Crisis

The decline in food-safety conditions at Smith mirrors the violence and neglect. Georgia Department of Public Health inspection records show that the kitchen scored an 84 (Grade B) in June 2023, an 82 (B) in January 2024, an 85 (B) in June 2025, and then a 72 (Grade C) in February 2026 — a drop that landed the facility in Grade C territory for the first time in four years. The 2026 inspection cited violations for proper cold holding temperatures, food labeling, and thermometer calibration. While DPH scores can mask chronic problems, that downward trajectory is consistent with GPS’s systemic finding that food-service sanitation failures are widespread across GDC kitchens, often invisible to scheduled walkthrough inspections.

GPS’s investigation “Dunked, Stacked, and Served” documented photographs from another state prison showing contaminated food trays, the result of tray-sanitizing dishwashers broken for extended periods and cleaning by hand using chemical barrels. The Marshall Project confirmed in a May 2026 investigation that kitchens across Georgia had rats, insects in food, moldy trays, and visible malnutrition. The state spends approximately $1.69 per person per day on food — roughly 14 times less than its spending on medical care — and the FY27 budget proposal dropped that figure to $1.60, well under the FDA’s Thrifty Food Plan estimate of roughly $10 per day for a nutritionally adequate diet. At Smith, the kitchen that failed its inspection is the same kitchen where Aureon Grace was fatally shot while her Aramark employer provided meals. The convergence of sanitation decay, a contraband firearm, and a homicide inside the food-service area captures the layered crisis.

Legal Reckoning: Settlements, Lawsuits, and the Path Forward

The human toll at Smith has drawn a series of legal actions and state payouts. Georgia Department of Administrative Services settlement ledgers, obtained through open records, show that the state paid $1.45 million for the death of Christopher Heath in 2020, $450,000 to Julia Roberts for a 2023 incident, $15,000 for Rufus Newberry’s 2018 case, $3,472 for Micki Antonio Brown in 2022, and $75,000 for Ricardo Tavera Jaramillo in 2014. Those payouts total over $2 million, all directly tied to Smith.

In addition, the Kicklighter family filed a wrongful death suit alleging that Adams and Moore facilitated the criminal enterprise that led to the 88-year-old’s murder. Deshonda Hagins’ lawsuit over the Grace shooting seeks a jury trial and unspecified damages, asserting that repeated warnings about the gun were ignored. A separate suit brought by the family of Hiwatha Hakeem Jr. contends that officials housed him with known violent attackers and failed to provide timely medical care after the fatal stabbing. The Southern Center for Human Rights sued GDC in 2021 broadly over poor prison conditions.

Criminal accountability has also advanced. The Tattnall County grand jury’s true bill against Adams in May 2026 followed GBI arrest warrants for bribery, criminal attempt to violate RICO, false statements, and tampering. Meanwhile, Adams’ replacement as warden is Charles Mims, who began his tenure on July 5, 2026, inheriting a facility under intense external scrutiny and internal instability.

A Facility Mirrors Georgia’s Prison Crisis

Smith State Prison is not an outlier; it is a concentrated expression of the systemic failures that GPS has documented across Georgia’s correctional system. The DOJ’s October 2024 letter concluded that sexual assault is “rampant,” that GDC does not reasonably protect incarcerated people from sexual harm, and that Georgia has never submitted a PREA certification of full compliance in the law’s two-decade history. The 2020 waterboarding and sexual assault at Smith — bars of soap falling from an inmate’s body — exemplifies the type of violence the DOJ flagged. GPS has independently tracked 1,859 deaths in GDC custody since 2020, and Smith’s 38 fatalities represent a disproportionate share of that toll: 18 homicides, 6 suicides, 1 overdose, 2 medical neglect deaths, 2 natural deaths, and 9 still pending investigation.

The crisis is not new. In December 2010, Smith was one of at least six Georgia prisons where incarcerated people launched a coordinated six-day strike, described as one of the largest prison protests in U.S. history. At the time, strikers cited overcrowding, substandard heat, denial of medical care, and forced labor. Fifteen years later, the same grievances remain, magnified by a collapse in staffing, a culture of corruption, and the lethal consequences now catalogued in homicide counts, settlement checks, and a federal investigation. GPS’s systemic finding — that deferred infrastructure maintenance, gang control, and a broken hiring pipeline operate as force multipliers for violence — is borne out at Smith with rare clarity. Until the structural drivers are addressed, the violence that has defined this facility will continue to extract its toll.

Sources

This analysis draws on reporting from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Georgia Virtue, Georgia Public Broadcasting, The Marshall Project, and In These Times; federal and state court filings and settlement records; Georgia Department of Public Health food-safety inspection reports; Georgia Department of Corrections official statements; GPS’s internal mortality database, systemic findings, and intelligence monitoring; and inmate and family accounts collected by GPS staff.

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 / 57
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.