CALHOUN STATE PRISON

Last updated September 6, 2026.(DS)

Calhoun State Prison: A Medium-Security Facility Operating as a De Facto Close-Security Prison

Calhoun State Prison in Morgan, Georgia, opened in 1994 as a medium-security prison for adult male felons. Constructed in 1993 and renovated in 1999 and 2008, the facility houses its population mainly in double-bunked cells and dormitory units, with a segregation/disciplinary area. Calhoun supports standard work details and limited programming. Its original design capacity was 500; its current rated capacity is 1,677, and GPS records show a population of 1,614 — roughly 96.2% of rated capacity, and more than triple the original design specification.

That expansion has not been matched by staffing or infrastructure. The facility has become a central case study in what GPS has termed "classification drift" — the practice of housing close-security inmates in facilities designated and staffed as medium-security. As of October 2025, Calhoun held 487 close-security inmates, representing 29.4% of its total population, according to GDC data. GPS's own analysis, published in a report titled "The Classification Crisis: How Four Medium Security Prisons Are Killing People," identified Calhoun alongside Dooly, Wilcox, and Washington State Prisons as facilities where close-security populations have reached 28–30%, with homicide rates four to five times higher than properly classified prisons. The report documented 33 deaths across those four facilities in 2024 alone, over half under age 50.

The Mortality Record: Homicides, Dehydration, and Deliberate Indifference

GPS has tracked 29 deaths at Calhoun State Prison since 2020, a figure that includes seven homicides, five natural or medical deaths, one suicide, and one death categorized as deliberate indifference. Fifteen deaths remain listed as unknown or pending cause. The most recent recorded death was Freddie Lee Patterson, 51, on May 13, 2026; Jimmy McMullen, 67, died on January 28, 2026; Matthew Len Nutt, 37, died on December 21, 2025, with his cause category recorded as homicide; and Thomas Haugabook, 67, died on September 25, 2025.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has documented several of these deaths in detail. DaQuavious Cachone Lackey, 21, died on May 16, 2022, from a stab wound of the neck and multiple blunt force injuries. The DOJ report found he was killed after staff failed to follow procedures when moving his assailant between segregation and general population, resulting in Lackey being beaten by his cellmate with a fan motor in a net bag. Martel Dorsey, 34, was stabbed by other prisoners on October 4, 2023; the GDC told a TV station that several witnesses saw Dorsey run out of a dorm as he was chased. Kenneth Piper, 37, was killed in an inmate-to-inmate assault on May 4, 2024. Gonzalo Colmenero, 54, died on July 17, 2024, following an inmate-to-inmate assault.

The most damning case in the public record involves a 24-year-old prisoner who died of dehydration with renal failure in February 2023. The AJC reported that prison staff cut off his food and water following an incident in which he threw water through his cell door flap. Federal investigators, as reported by WALB, documented that staff shut off his water, closed the door flap, and did not deliver meals for two days. The coroner believed the man had been dead for seven to eight hours before being found. This death is recorded in GPS's mortality database under the category of deliberate indifference.

Willie Andrew Willis Jr. died after a fall at Calhoun State Prison. His family alleges he was thrown from a balcony by other inmates and that nearly an hour passed before he was airlifted for treatment; medical records list sepsis as the cause of death. WALB reported that nurses gave a conflicting account, claiming Willis came to get Tylenol and returned to his dorm before collapsing, while the family states he was paralyzed from the waist down and on a ventilator.

The DOJ Findings: Classification Failures and Deliberate Indifference

The U.S. Department of Justice's October 2024 investigation into the Georgia Department of Corrections concluded that the system fails to provide incarcerated persons with the constitutionally required minimum of reasonable physical safety. The findings, as reported by WALB in February 2026, documented that staff at Calhoun State Prison failed to follow classification and housing assignment procedures, contributing to a 2022 homicide. The same reporting found that a grievance filed by an incarcerated person at Calhoun alleging extortion and gang violence was rejected as untimely with no follow-up.

The DOJ investigation found that Georgia deliberately underreports prison homicides, listing deaths clearly identified as homicides in internal reports as "unknown" in official mortality data. In the first five months of 2024, the state reported only six homicides system-wide, while internal GDC incident reports documented at least 18 deaths as homicides in the same period. Federal investigators also found that less than 10% of prison fights, less than 23% of inmate-on-inmate assaults, and less than 6% of incidents involving weapons were forwarded for investigation. EMS teams were delayed an average of 30 minutes during emergency responses to GDC prisons due to understaffing.

GPS's own systemic findings place Calhoun within a broader pattern. Officer vacancies in Georgia's prisons have run between 49.3% and 60% system-wide for multiple years, against a national standard of no more than 10%. The DOJ findings letter explicitly concluded that "the leadership of the Georgia Department of Corrections has lost control of its facilities" and faulted GDC for placing "too much blame on gangs and insufficient emphasis on understaffing." Approximately 31% of the system's ~49,000 incarcerated population are validated members of 315 different security threat groups — more than double the national average. DOJ and the Guidehouse 2024 consultant assessment independently concluded that gangs effectively run multiple facilities, controlling access to phones, showers, food, and bed assignments.

Gang Control, Staff Misconduct, and the Contraband Economy

The AJC's reporting has documented a pattern of staff misconduct at Calhoun that intersects directly with the facility's gang-control problem. In February 2020, correctional officers Corlethia Lattimore and Imani Ferguson were arrested after arriving for their shifts with Hot Pockets packages allegedly containing methamphetamine and tobacco. Lattimore's package allegedly contained 112 grams of methamphetamine — four times the amount for a trafficking charge. Both were immediately fired. But the charges were dismissed in July 2023 because there was no crime lab report or law enforcement report to support them: the drug evidence was never submitted for testing.

That failure was not isolated. The AJC found that nearly two dozen cases leading to 33 arrests between 2018 and 2021 related to Calhoun State Prison were dismissed by District Attorney Joe Mulholland because drug evidence was never submitted to the GBI crime lab. Five prison employees and dozens of other suspected smugglers walked free. GDC investigator Ruby Long took out arrest warrants in the Hot Pockets case but allegedly failed to submit the drug evidence to the crime lab. The Calhoun County Sheriff's Department failed to submit drug evidence in 12 dismissed cases despite the sheriff's claim that deputies had sent evidence to the state lab. The GDC's public statement about the number of dismissed cases conflicted with what the AJC found in court files, suggesting the agency understated the scope of the evidentiary failures.

The contraband economy at Calhoun has been extensive. Officer Temperess Johnson was caught in 2019 attempting to smuggle eight cellphones and 2.6 pounds of meth in a GDC van; she was sentenced to five years in federal prison. Pedro Barragan Valencia brokered the distribution of at least 250 kilograms of meth while serving a state prison sentence and was sentenced to 400 months in federal prison in December 2023. Jonathan Alvin Pope led a drug ring operating in at least seven Georgia counties as far back as 2018, with 13 others indicted, seven of them also incarcerated; Pope was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison. Edwin Murillo brokered major meth sales in several northeast Georgia counties and was sentenced to 300 months in federal prison in April 2019; he was later sentenced to life in prison for directing a 2021 torture and murder. Irvin Falcon, a 23-year-old prisoner serving a sentence for burglary, used a contraband cellphone to direct methamphetamine deliveries in the Fitzgerald area; six others were also convicted.

In January 2026, two inmates — Joey Amour Jackson and Lance Riddle — were convicted of running a nationwide wire fraud operation from Calhoun using contraband cell phones. GPS reporting documents that the operation stole $464,920 from 119 identified victims across six states, spoofing police department phone numbers, threatening women with arrest warrants, and instructing victims to undress in Target bathrooms. The GDC deployed its Managed Access System (MAS) at Calhoun in mid-2025 — after the fraud operation had already occurred — at a system-wide capital cost of $50 million plus $15 million or more in annual operating expenses across 34 state prisons.

The Quiet Purge: The Lifer Transfer Wave

GPS's own investigative reporting has documented what it calls "The Quiet Purge: Calhoun Edition." In less than three months, Warden Kendric Jackson transferred 87 lifers out of Calhoun State Prison — 79% of them to close-security (Level 5) facilities. GPS data reveals a systematic population swap: stable, long-term inmates shipped to Level 5 prisons while younger short-timers arrive from those same facilities. No other medium-security prison in Georgia is doing anything close to this, according to GPS's analysis.

The transfer wave was concentrated: 36 lifers were shipped in the final week of March 2026 alone. Among those transferred was John Morgan Coleman, age 82, moved from Calhoun (medium-security) to Hancock State Prison (close-security Level 5). GPS staff analysis indicates that a large majority of lifers transferred from Calhoun are Black, that a significant portion are aged 60 or older, and that most were convicted of murder. According to GDC records, the transferred lifers are reported to have parole eligibility and are not classified as Life Without Parole.

GPS internal analysis identifies Calhoun as a significant statistical outlier in transfer rates for life-sentenced incarcerated persons compared to other facilities. The facility accounted for a disproportionately high share of medium-to-close security lifer transfers statewide in 2024–2025. GPS staff observed that transfers followed a rotating daily pattern over a multi-day period, consistent with pre-planned transport scheduling rather than ad hoc transfers. Incoming transfers to Calhoun from close-security facilities are predominantly non-lifers — individuals being reclassified to lower security levels, many with short-term release dates. GPS staff analysis indicates that Calhoun may be undergoing a deliberate shift in population composition, moving away from a medium-security facility with a significant long-term population toward a short-term throughput model.

The current warden, Charles Leonard Hudson, assumed the post on June 1, 2026. Deputy wardens include Sawanda Owens (Administration, since August 2026), Tracey Scott (since January 2020), Curtis Tyrone Johnson (Security, since May 2025), and Gwendolyn A. Spencer (since November 2023). The transfer wave documented by GPS occurred under prior leadership.

Inmate Accounts: Group Punishment, Racialized Violence, and Gang-Controlled Housing

Inmate accounts collected by GPS describe a pattern of group punishment at Calhoun that violates standard operating procedures. Multiple witnesses report that staff deny meals as a form of corporal punishment on a daily basis, that entire housing units have been deprived of commissary for weeks at a time, and that food distribution has been ceded to incarcerated people, with access determined by gang affiliation or by stronger inmates who sell or trade food to weaker ones. GPS has received recurring reports that staff use pepper spray and Tasers for infractions that do not legally justify such force, including an incident in which an elderly incarcerated person was tased on orders from a deputy warden and then again, while on the floor, on orders from the warden.

Multiple witnesses report that the Classification Committee at Calhoun fails to screen, sort, and house inmates based on objective criteria. GPS has received accounts of a nonviolent minimum-security inmate nearing release being housed with a violent inmate serving multiple life sentences. Inmate witnesses report that a senior security official's aides are all gang-affiliated, and that a deputy warden's aides have orchestrated beatings by security threat groups summoned from other housing areas. GPS has received accounts of nonaffiliated Caucasian inmates being assaulted by Black gangs after being moved into a gang-controlled dorm, and reports that racial animosity is openly expressed by staff and inmates against the minority Caucasian population.

GPS records show 14 assault-by-inmate signals at critical or high severity across five months in 2026, with external complaints filed to the DOJ Civil Rights Division. GPS has additionally received five assault-by-staff signals at critical or high severity, four excessive-force signals, and ten family-fear-for-life signals across six months in 2026. Eight death-in-custody signals were recorded across three months, with external complaints filed to the DOJ Civil Rights Division. These signals corroborate the documented pattern: a facility where violence is endemic, where staff are implicated in the violence, and where families fear for the lives of their loved ones.

Food Safety Scores and the Limits of Inspection

The Georgia Department of Public Health has conducted routine food-safety inspections at Calhoun State Prison since at least 2023, and the scores have been consistently high: 100, 99, 98, 97, and 96 across multiple inspections, all Grade A. The most recent inspections, on July 14, 2026, scored 100 and 96, with violations cited for thermometers and physical facilities maintenance.

But GPS has documented a systemic pattern of food-service sanitation failure across GDC kitchens that DPH inspection scores systematically fail to capture. The pattern is hidden from DPH scores because inspections are scheduled walkthroughs that do not assess equipment under load, and because GPS has documented professional overlap between inspectors and facility staff in small-county settings. High DPH scores at GDC facilities coexist with sustained witness reports of equipment failure and food contamination. GPS's systemic finding documents that GDC spends approximately $1.69 per person per day on food (2024), under 60 cents per meal, versus the FDA Thrifty Food Plan estimate of roughly $10 per day for an adult man's nutritionally adequate diet. The Marshall Project independently corroborated the pattern on May 16, 2026, reporting rats in kitchens, insects in food, moldy trays, and visible malnutrition across Georgia facilities.

Settlements and the Cost of Failure

The State of Georgia has paid out at least $4.26 million in liability settlements tied to Calhoun State Prison since 2018, according to the GA DOAS Risk Management settlement ledger obtained through open records. The largest payout was $3.25 million to Reginald Jacobs Sr., for the Estate of Reginald Jacobs Jr., tied to a 2023 incident and linked to a documented death record. Angel M. Ortiz received $998,715 for a 2019 incident. Asmar Rasheed received $10,000 for a 2018 incident. Lasharon Brantley received $1,400 for a 2020 incident.

These settlements represent the state's own acknowledgment of liability for harm at Calhoun. They sit alongside the seven homicides GPS has tracked at the facility since 2020, the DOJ's findings of deliberate indifference, and the documented pattern of classification failures that placed vulnerable inmates in harm's way. The facility's food-safety scores remain high; its mortality record does not.

Sources

This analysis draws on reporting from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, WALB, and The Marshall Project; federal court and settlement records obtained through open records requests; Georgia Department of Public Health inspection reports; GDC statistical reports and standard operating procedures; GPS's own investigative reporting, including "The Quiet Purge: Calhoun Edition" and "The Classification Crisis: How Four Medium Security Prisons Are Killing People"; testimony documented in GPS's reporting on the prison staffing crisis, including the on-record accounts of former GDC Sergeant Tyler Ryals and Commander Zirkle in "Two Commanders Say Georgia Hides Its Prison Staffing Crisis"; and inmate and family accounts collected by GPS staff.