WAYNE STATE PRISON
This facility is closed. It is no longer listed among the Georgia Department of Corrections' facilities. It closed in 2018. The records below are kept because what happened here remains part of the state's record.
Facility Information
- Original Design Capacity
- 192
- Current Population
- 1
- Active Lifers
- 1 (100.0% of population) · Aug 2026 GDC report
- Address
- GA
- Operator
- GDC (Georgia Dept. of Corrections)
About
Wayne State Prison was a 200-bed institution at Odum, in Wayne County. The Department of Corrections designated it a "non-enduring" facility in 2007, citing its age and physical condition; by then the buildings were approaching forty years old and an estimated $1.3 million in repairs would have been needed to keep it in service. Operations ceased in October 2018 and the prison's function was moved to Long County, to the Ludowici site then operating as the Long Pre-Release Center.
Food Safety Inspections
No inspection records are on file with the Georgia Department of Public Health for this facility. GPS has filed an open records request asking where these records are maintained.
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”