LEE STATE PRISON

Last updated September 13, 2026.(DS)

Lee State Prison sits on the outskirts of Leesburg in Lee County, a medium-security men's facility that opened in 1979 and has been part of the Georgia Department of Corrections' Southwest Georgia footprint for more than four decades. Its 11 general-population housing units hold two-man cells, supplemented by specialized housing for isolation, medical, and mobility-impaired prisoners; the prison also serves as a transfer hub and intake point for certain movements within the system, and offers outside work details and basic programming. GPS's facility records put the current population at 869 against a rated capacity of 762 — 114% of rated capacity, and more than double the 384 people the plant was originally designed to hold. Warden Letitia Burks has led the facility since July 5, 2026, working with Deputy Wardens Matasha L. Cook, Willether Brown, and Martin A. Jones. What follows examines the facility through four lenses: the structural pressures of overcrowding and classification drift, the statewide staffing and gang-control collapse that shapes daily life inside it, the contradiction between its spotless food-safety record and GPS's systemic findings on prison kitchens, and the seven deaths GPS has recorded there since 2020.

Overcrowding, Classification Drift, and the Medium-Security Squeeze

Lee State Prison's population figures are a local expression of a structural problem GPS has documented across the Georgia system. The facility holds 869 people in a space rated for 762 — and originally designed for 384. GPS's reporting has described what it terms classification drift: medium-security facilities across Georgia operating as close-security institutions without the staffing or infrastructure to match. GPS published a report titled "The Classification Crisis: How Four Medium Security Prisons Are Killing People" documenting that pattern, and its analysis of October 27, 2025 data shows medium-security prisons functioning like high-security facilities. The underlying systemic finding is that GDC's capacity counts are inflated against original design specifications, and that correctional officer vacancies averaging roughly 50% statewide compound the danger of housing higher-classification people in medium-security settings. Lee State Prison's 114% capacity figure is one instance of that statewide condition — a 1979 plant built for 384 people now carrying more than twice that number under a security designation its staffing model was never sized to support.

Staffing Collapse and the Loss of Facility Control

The staffing crisis that shapes conditions at Lee State Prison is documented at the system level, and its consequences are not abstract. GPS's systemic findings record officer vacancies running between 49.3% and 60% systemwide for multiple years, against a national standard of no more than 10%. The hiring pipeline cannot close the gap: acceptance rates run under 15%, and 82.7% of new hires leave within their first year. Georgia ranks last of 50 states for correctional-officer pay. 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." Approximately 31% of the system's roughly 49,000 incarcerated people 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.

The on-record human cost of that vacancy rate is captured in testimony GPS collected from Tyler Ryals, a former GDC sergeant forced out in 2024 after whistleblowing, who said he had personally been the only security person on the entire Telfair compound of roughly 1,250 maximum-security inmates. GPS treats staffing collapse and gang assumption of facility control as the integrated structural finding that explains the per-facility violence, classification, mortality, and infrastructure-failure narratives it documents — and for a transfer hub like Lee State Prison, moving people in and out of a facility with a fraction of its authorized security staff is precisely the condition that finding describes.

Violence, Lockdowns, and the Statewide Gang War

Lee State Prison has not been insulated from the violence GPS has documented across the Georgia system. Inmate accounts collected by GPS describe fights at the facility in 2026, including one outside the store, and multiple witnesses report that Lee State Prison was placed on lockdown in 2026. GPS's internal analysis flagged a high-severity violence incident at the facility. These local reports sit inside a statewide pattern: GPS's reporting documents coordinated Blood-on-Blood gang violence erupting across Georgia's prison system on April 1, 2026, with at least 12 prisons locked down, life flights dispatched to two facilities, and stabbings at five. GPS has demanded gang separation for months, noting that Arizona cut violence 50% with such a strategy while Georgia still refuses. The systemic finding is that 315 gangs and 15,200 gang-affiliated prisoners — 31% of the population — operate with no separation strategy, no exit program, and no management plan.

The deadliest single event in that pattern occurred at Washington State Prison, not at Lee, but it frames the conditions under which every Georgia facility now operates. On January 11, 2026, a gang-related riot at Washington State Prison killed three people at the scene — Teddy Jackson, 27; Ahmod Hatcher, 23; and Jimmy Trammell, 42, who had days remaining on his sentence. A fourth, Silas Westbrook, 42, was injured in the riot and died on January 17 after being released from the hospital. Two days before the riot, on January 9, Dajhmere Hall, 30, was found dead at Washington State Prison, with cause held as Unknown/Pending. Washington State Prison was placed on continuous lockdown after the riot and had not reopened more than five months later. Twelve incarcerated people were charged with felony murder, aggravated assault, and gang participation, announced around April 28, 2026.

Food Service: Perfect Scores and the Sanitation Gap

Lee State Prison's food-safety inspection record is, on its face, exemplary. The Georgia Department of Public Health has inspected the facility's kitchen seven times since July 2023, and six of those inspections returned perfect scores of 100. The most recent, on July 7, 2026, was a routine inspection by Ken Collins that found no violations. The January 6, 2026, July 21, 2025, January 14, 2025, July 17, 2024, and January 16, 2024 inspections all returned the same perfect score. Only the July 14, 2023 inspection found anything to cite — a score of 90, still Grade A, with two violations: proper cold holding temperatures, and physical facilities installed, maintained, and clean.

GPS's systemic findings, however, document a pattern these scores systematically fail to capture. GDC spends approximately $1.69 per person per day on food in 2024, with a proposed $1.60 per day in FY27 — under 60 cents per meal — against the FDA Thrifty Food Plan estimate of roughly $10 per day for an adult man's nutritionally adequate diet. The state spends approximately 14 times more on medical care for incarcerated people ($432 million) than on their food. The Marshall Project independently reported on May 16, 2026, in Beth Schwartzapfel's "Rats, Insects and Mold," documenting rats in kitchens, insects in food, moldy trays, and visible malnutrition across Georgia facilities, and quoting GPS connecting chronic underfeeding to the violence pattern the DOJ documented in October 2024. GPS has separately documented tray-sanitizing dishwashers broken for sustained periods, sustained roach and rodent infestation in kitchen and serving areas, and meals served on visibly contaminated trays. The pattern is hidden from DPH scores, GPS's analysis concludes, 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; the contradiction is the analytical center of GPS's investigation "Dunked, Stacked, and Served."

Mortality at Lee State Prison

GPS's mortality database records seven deaths at Lee State Prison since tracking began on January 1, 2020. Four are classified as Unknown/Pending, two as Natural/Medical, and one as Suicide. The most recent recorded death was Yancey Sullivan, 56, on July 10, 2026, with cause listed as Unknown/Pending. Quinton Pearson, 45, died on September 8, 2025, also with cause Unknown/Pending. Daniel Emmett Ivey, 26, died on February 15, 2024, and Christopher Aaron Godfrey, 40, on January 16, 2024, both with cause Unknown/Pending. Pedro Perez-Robles, 38, died by suicide on May 28, 2021. Phillip E. Patterson, 63, and Anthony Wilbert Cheek, 49, died of natural or medical causes in March and April 2020. GPS treats every count as a floor, since GDC reports deaths approximately two months late. Systemwide, GPS has independently tracked 1,890 deaths in GDC custody since 2020. The DOJ investigation found Georgia's in-prison homicide rate nearly eight times the national average, with 333 total deaths in GDC custody in 2024 — the deadliest year in state history.

Infrastructure, Contraband, and the Force-Multiplier Effect

Lee State Prison, opened in 1979, falls squarely within the age cohort GPS has identified as structurally vulnerable. Most GDC facilities are 30-40+ years old, with documented patterns of deferred maintenance that have produced systemwide infrastructure failures: broken cell-door locks, inoperative surveillance and fire-alarm systems, mold and water failures, broken kitchen sanitization equipment, and pest infestations. The DOJ October 2024 findings, the Guidehouse 2024 assessment, and Commissioner Oliver's public "end of life" statements all corroborate the pattern. GPS treats infrastructure collapse as a force multiplier for the violence, classification, gang-control, and mortality crises it has documented at the facility level — and for a facility holding 869 people in a 1979 plant designed for 384, with medium-security classification but close-security population pressures, that finding is not abstract.

GDC's own contraband arrest reports sketch a facility where the perimeter is porous in both directions. In November 2023, Officer Jaylin Lane entered Lee State Prison with a strong odor of marijuana on his person and, after consenting to a search, was found with a vacuum-sealed bag of marijuana taped to his body; he was arrested by the Lee County Sheriff's Office. In September 2021, Officer Soilberry was stopped at the front entrance after failing the security check-in, and a search of his person found packages of unknown contraband. In July 2019, Officer Elisha Whitus surrendered two bundles containing 76.2 grams of marijuana, 469.4 grams of tobacco, and five packs of rolling paper after a front-entry sergeant noticed the smell of marijuana on him. Visitors feature in the record as well: in March 2019, three separate visitors — Ryan Chastain, Warren Gilbert, and Nahemie Wednt — were arrested by the Lee County Sheriff's Office on the same day, with Gilbert's vehicle search yielding 11.7 grams of marijuana, a handgun, and two loaded magazines. In July 2020, a car stopped near the facility by the Lee County Sheriff's Office was found to contain tobacco, cellphones, phone chargers, and handguns; Kenn Releford, Travisia Walker, Patricia Gary, and Devonte Hollingshed were arrested. GDC publishes no dispositions for these arrests, and an arrest is not a conviction.

Sexual Violence and the Systemic Baseline

GPS's systemic findings establish that sexual violence in Georgia Department of Corrections facilities is systemic, not facility-isolated. The October 2024 DOJ findings letter concluded that sexual assault is "rampant" and that GDC does not reasonably protect incarcerated people, including LGBTI individuals, from sexual harm. Of 456 sexual-abuse allegations recorded in 2022, only 35 were substantiated — 7.7%. GDC's own consultants, PREA Auditors of America, reviewed 388 PREA investigation files in May 2022 and found that not one met the law's standards. Georgia has never submitted a PREA certification of full compliance to the U.S. Department of Justice in the law's two-decade history. GPS treats this pattern as the analytical center of any GDC violence or staff-misconduct narrative, including at Lee State Prison, and it is the baseline against which the facility's own record — seven deaths, recurring lockdowns, and a contraband pipeline running through its front gate — should be read.

Sources

This analysis draws on Georgia Department of Public Health food-safety inspection records for Lee State Prison; GDC's own published contraband arrest reports; GPS's mortality database, facility records, and personnel records; GPS systemic findings on staffing, classification drift, food service, infrastructure, and sexual violence; GPS-authored reporting on the statewide gang war and the Classification Crisis; The Marshall Project's May 2026 investigation of Georgia prison food; the October 2024 DOJ findings letter; the Guidehouse 2024 consultant assessment; and inmate and family accounts collected by GPS staff.