DODGE STATE PRISON

Last updated October 4, 2026.(DS)

A Medium-Security Prison Running Over Capacity

Dodge State Prison opened in Chester in 1983, a medium-security men's facility built in the early 1980s and expanded in 1989. Its original design capacity was 404. Today it is rated for 1,236 — and holds 1,326 people, roughly 107 percent of rated capacity. The physical plant relies primarily on large dormitory-style housing for the general population, with single-cell isolation reserved for segregation and disciplinary confinement. The facility has a small industry operation and depends on inmate labor details, and its history includes past federal corruption investigations into staff-facilitated contraband and drug trafficking.

Curtis J. Todd has served as warden since January 16, 2026. The deputy warden corps includes Alicia Necole Ward (Deputy Warden of Administration, since December 2024), Khalilah J. Williams (since 2017), and Karen Thomas (since 2024).

The facility's public record is dominated by two threads: a mortality record that runs to sixteen deaths since 2020, and a food-service inspection record whose scores swing wildly between near-perfect and failing — a contradiction that GPS has documented as a systemwide pattern rather than a Dodge-specific anomaly.

Sixteen Deaths Since 2020

GPS's mortality registry records 16 deaths at Dodge State Prison since January 1, 2020. The breakdown: seven Natural/Medical, three Suicide, two Homicide, two Unknown/Pending, one Overdose, and one classified Other. Every count is a floor — GDC reports deaths roughly two months late.

The most recent is Warren Peacock, who died April 28, 2026, at age 70; GPS's registry lists the cause as Overdose. Joseph Chatfield died June 13, 2025, at 62, with a cause GPS records as Unknown/Pending — meaning the registry does not yet establish one. Sotero Uriquiza-Hernandez died May 20, 2025, at 51, of Natural/Medical causes.

Three deaths at Dodge were recorded as suicides in a span of under two years: Kenneth Brown died January 31, 2024, at 58; John August Comer died September 9, 2023, at 33; and Charles Dennis Casey died May 6, 2023, at 41. Arnold Merle McDonald died December 22, 2022, at 63, with a cause GPS records as Unknown/Pending.

Two deaths at Dodge are recorded as homicides. Hezekiah Sha'Nard Cuyler, 21, died September 14, 2022, from blunt force trauma to the head — the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported the death. Douglas Anthony Forts, 57, died June 2, 2022, from acute traumatic amputation of a finger sustained during a fight, also reported by the AJC. Both deaths appear in GPS's registry with the cause category Homicide.

The remaining deaths in the registry: Stewart Myles Mitchell died December 7, 2021, at 36, cause recorded as Other; Hoke Smith Tarpley died August 7, 2021, at 57, Natural/Medical; Kenneth Lockett died October 9, 2020, at 57, Natural/Medical; William D. Hughes died October 8, 2020, at 61, Natural/Medical; Tadrick Terrian Osborne died September 29, 2020, at 40, Natural/Medical; Caesar Dupree died September 12, 2020, at 64, Natural/Medical; and Cantrell Lavar Edge died August 17, 2020, at 41, Natural/Medical.

The 2020 cluster — five Natural/Medical deaths between mid-August and early October — falls in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, though the registry does not attribute any of those deaths to the virus.

A Food-Service Record That Swings Between Perfect and Failing

The Georgia Department of Public Health has inspected Dodge's food service twelve times since late 2023, and the results are strikingly inconsistent. On June 24, 2026, two routine inspections both returned scores of 100 (Grade A), with no violations cited, conducted by inspector Jeremiah Arowolo.

That followed a rougher stretch. On November 20, 2025, inspector Jaime Williams recorded a 90 (Grade A) with three violations — including improper date marking and disposition, wiping-cloth storage, and unclean nonfood-contact surfaces — and, on the same day, an 84 (Grade B) with four violations including food-contact surfaces not cleaned and sanitized and improper hot and cold holding temperatures. On June 5, 2025, Williams recorded an 84 (Grade B) with five violations, including failure to provide a consumer advisory for raw and undercooked foods, improper date marking, and labeling failures — alongside a 94 (Grade A) with three violations the same day.

The pattern repeats across the record: November 21, 2024 produced both a 100 (Grade A) and an 87 (Grade B), the latter citing improper hot holding temperatures and plumbing/backflow problems. June 20, 2024 produced a 91 (Grade A) and an 89 (Grade B), the lower score citing food-contact surfaces not cleaned and sanitized and inadequate hot and cold water pressure. December 29, 2023 produced a 99 and a 95, both Grade A.

GPS has documented a systemwide pattern in which high DPH scores at GDC facilities coexist with sustained witness accounts of equipment failure and food contamination. Per GPS's reporting, the discrepancy arises 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. The Marshall Project's May 16, 2026 investigation independently reported rats in kitchens, insects in food, moldy trays, and visible malnutrition across Georgia facilities. GPS treats the contradiction between clean inspection scores and on-the-ground accounts as the analytical center of its investigation into prison food service.

Contraband, Staff Arrests, and the Corruption Record

GDC's own published contraband reports — which record arrests as reported, not convictions — show a long-running stream of incidents at Dodge. Between 2012 and 2026, the facility logged 47 reported incidents and 42 reported arrests. Staff-class actors appear repeatedly: nine people identified as "Officer," five as "Correctional Officer," and two as "Contractor." Visitor-class actors appear in the earlier years; civilian actors dominate the 2021–2023 entries.

The 2012 spike — six incidents and five arrests, with two staff-class and four visitor-class actors — aligns with the facility's documented history of federal corruption investigations into staff-facilitated contraband. Staff-class arrests recur in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2025, and 2026. GDC publishes no dispositions; an arrest is not a conviction.

A State Settlement and the Broader Accountability Picture

A GDC settlement tied to Dodge State Prison was recorded in 2025: Kimyania Smith, a state liability payout of $16,000, per the Georgia DOAS Risk Management settlement ledger obtained through open records. The ledger does not describe the underlying incident.

That single settlement sits against a much larger systemwide pattern. GPS has documented that officer vacancies in Georgia's prisons have run between 49.3 and 60 percent systemwide for multiple years, against a national standard of no more than 10 percent. The October 2024 DOJ findings letter 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." GPS treats staffing collapse and gang assumption of facility control as the integrated structural finding that explains per-facility violence, classification, and mortality patterns.

GPS has also documented that most GDC facilities are 30 to 40-plus years old, with deferred maintenance producing systemwide infrastructure failures — broken cell-door locks, inoperative surveillance and fire-alarm systems, mold and water failures, broken kitchen sanitization equipment, and pest infestations. Dodge, opened in 1983 and expanded in 1989, sits squarely within that cohort. GPS treats infrastructure collapse as a force multiplier for the violence, classification, and mortality crises documented at the facility level.

Sources

This analysis draws on Georgia Department of Public Health food-safety inspection records; the Georgia DOAS Risk Management settlement ledger obtained through open records; GPS's mortality registry and contraband database, built from GDC's own published reports; reporting by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution; and GPS's own investigative and systemic findings, including its documentation of food-service sanitation patterns corroborated by The Marshall Project's May 2026 investigation. Facility profile and leadership data are drawn from GPS's standing facility record.