LONG UNIT
The Long Unit is a Close Security Unit housed within Smith State Prison near Hinesville, Georgia, operating with a population of 231 inmates as of October 2025. The unit gained public attention through the case of Tex McIver, an 82-year-old former attorney who spent part of his sentence there before being transferred to Augusta State Medical Prison and subsequently paroled in January 2025. As a satellite close-security unit embedded within a larger facility, Long Unit represents a distinct classification structure within the GDC's broader system of security-level management.
Key Facts
By the Numbers
Facility Overview and Classification
The Long Unit is formally designated a Close Security Unit operating under the administrative umbrella of Smith State Prison, located near Hinesville, Georgia. As of October 27, 2025, the unit housed 231 total inmates: 63 classified as Minimum security, 168 as Medium security, and notably zero inmates classified at the Close security level — a striking anomaly for a facility carrying a Close Security Unit designation.
This classification structure raises immediate questions about the operational purpose of the unit. A close-security designation typically carries specific infrastructure, staffing, and oversight requirements. Yet the population data shows the unit housing primarily Medium-security inmates (72.7% of the population) with no formally classified Close security inmates at all. This inversion — a close-security unit without close-security inmates — warrants scrutiny as part of the broader pattern of classification drift GPS has documented across the GDC system, in which facilities operate at security levels misaligned with their formal designations.
For comparison, the parent facility Smith State Prison is itself a Close Security institution, housing 1,125 inmates as of October 2025, with 1,002 of them classified at the Close level. The Long Unit's anomalous population profile suggests it may function as a distinct housing environment within Smith's perimeter — potentially serving an administrative segregation, transitional, or specialized population function — though the GDC has not publicly clarified its operational mandate.
Notable Incarceration: The Tex McIver Case
The Long Unit drew rare public attention in January 2025 when former Atlanta attorney Claud "Tex" McIver, 82, was paroled following a plea agreement that resolved years of high-profile litigation. McIver had spent a significant portion of his incarceration at Long Unit — referred to in press coverage as "Long State Prison near Hinesville" — before being transferred in his final weeks to Augusta State Medical Prison, reportedly due to deteriorating health.
McIver had originally been convicted of felony murder in the 2016 shooting death of his wife, Diane McIver, a conviction that was later vacated. In January 2024, he entered a negotiated plea to involuntary manslaughter, reckless conduct, and associated gun possession charges, receiving a sentence of eight years in prison and seven years of probation, with credit for time already served. He was paroled shortly after midnight on January 9, 2025. His attorney, Don Samuel, described McIver's experience as a "miserable existence," citing the impact of incarceration on his health, relationships, and standing.
While the McIver case is exceptional in its public profile, it offers a rare documented account of conditions at the Long Unit from the perspective of an inmate who had resources, legal representation, and media access that most incarcerated people at the facility do not. The fact that his health declined sufficiently to require transfer to Augusta State Medical Prison — Georgia's primary correctional medical facility — prior to his release reflects the physical toll of incarceration at this unit, particularly for aging individuals. GPS tracks 6 inmates statewide classified as terminally ill and 1,261 with poorly controlled health conditions as of April 2026; the Long Unit's elderly and medically vulnerable population, if any, would be subsumed within those system-wide figures.
Classification Drift and Systemic Context
The Long Unit's population profile — a close-security-designated unit housing zero close-security inmates — must be understood within the GDC's documented system-wide problem of classification drift. GPS has reported extensively on how facilities across Georgia are routinely operating at security levels incongruent with their formal designations, creating environments where staffing models, physical infrastructure, and oversight mechanisms are mismatched to the actual population being managed.
Across the GDC system as of October 2025, the Special Management Unit at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison housed 149 close-security inmates with no minimum or medium population — a coherent close-security profile. By contrast, the Long Unit's 231-person population of exclusively minimum and medium inmates, housed under a close-security banner, suggests a fundamentally different operational reality. Whether this reflects intentional program design, administrative convenience, or simple bureaucratic misclassification, the consequences for inmates are real: close-security designations affect programming access, movement restrictions, visitation, and parole eligibility calculations.
The broader GDC system continues to operate under severe strain. GPS tracks a total of 1,778 deaths in Georgia prisons since 2020, with 78 deaths already recorded in 2026 alone as of April 26 — including 27 confirmed homicides. The system-wide population stood at 52,804 as of April 24, 2026, with an additional 2,440 individuals waiting in county jails for GDC bed space. These pressures affect every facility in the system, including satellite units like Long.
Staffing, Oversight, and Accountability Gaps
No specific staffing data for the Long Unit has been made publicly available by the GDC, consistent with the department's broader practice of opacity on operational metrics. What is documented is the systemic staffing crisis afflicting Georgia's close-security infrastructure. GPS has reported that Washington State Prison — another facility in the GDC network — was operating with just five officers to cover 69 posts at the time of a January 2026 mass violence incident that killed four inmates, including Jimmy Trammell, who had 72 hours remaining on his sentence.
While that incident occurred at Washington State Prison and not at the Long Unit, it illustrates the system-wide staffing collapse that provides context for any satellite unit operating under a close-security designation. A unit of 231 inmates embedded within Smith State Prison's infrastructure is subject to the same GDC-wide workforce shortages, mandatory overtime conditions, and post-vacancy patterns that GPS has documented at facilities across the state.
The GDC does not publicly report cause-of-death information for inmates who die in its custody. All mortality data cited by GPS — including the 78 deaths recorded statewide in 2026, of which 27 are classified as homicides — is maintained through GPS's independent investigative tracking, drawing on news reports, family accounts, and public records. The true homicide count across the system is assessed by GPS to be significantly higher than confirmed figures, as many deaths remain classified as unknown or pending further investigation.