TELFAIR STATE PRISON
Facility Information
- Capacity
- 1,400 beds
- Current Population
- 1,265
- Address
- 170 Longbridge Road, Helena, GA 31037
- Mailing Address
- P.O. Box 549, Helena, GA 31037
- County
- Telfair County
- Operator
- GDC (Georgia Dept. of Corrections)
- Warden
- Andrew McFarlane
- Phone
- (229) 868-7721
- Fax
- (229) 868-6509
- Staff
- Special Assistant to Warden: VACANT
- Deputy Warden Security: Denisha Foster
- Deputy Warden Security: Rickey Wilcox
- Deputy Warden C&T: Tonja Keith
- Deputy Warden Admin: Darrell Wooten
About
Telfair State Prison in McRae-Helena is a close-security prison for adult male felons that opened in 1992. It combines open-dorm housing with multiple double-bunked cell units and segregation/isolation cells for high-risk or hard-to-manage prisoners. Telfair has been the subject of national scrutiny for extreme violence, including multiple inmate and staff homicides, and for the documented death of a prisoner from heat exposure after being left in an outdoor cage – incidents that figured prominently in the U.S. Department of Justice’s findings on Georgia prisons.
Mortality Statistics
50 deaths documented at this facility from 2020 to present.
Deaths by Year
- 2025: 12
- 2024: 11
- 2023: 8
- 2022: 5
- 2021: 3
- 2020: 11