Blackshear, Janice Denise

Tenure Summary

Janice Denise Blackshear's recorded career with the Georgia Department of Corrections runs from 2007 to the present and stays on the custody and security track. She is listed as a correctional officer at Macon State Prison in 2007; a lieutenant at Central State Prison in 2014 and at Burruss Correctional Training Center in 2015; chief of security at McEver Probation Detention Center in 2018; and unit manager at Central State Prison in 2019, 2024 and the first half of 2025. Records place her in two overlapping Central State posts from January 1 to May 15, 2025 — unit manager and deputy warden — before she moved into the Deputy Warden of Security position on May 16, 2025. A separate record lists a single-day Deputy Warden entry at Central State dated August 27, 2026.

Eleven deaths are attributed to her leadership tenure, all of them at Central State Prison in Macon, according to GPS's tracking of Georgia prison deaths. Each of those deaths is logged under her Deputy Warden of Security role. No lawsuit naming Blackshear as a defendant appears in the records provided.

What happened on their watch

Macon State Prison — Correctional Officer (2007). Records list Blackshear in a correctional officer post at Macon State Prison during 2007.

Central State Prison — Lieutenant (2014); Burruss Correctional Training Center — Lieutenant (2015). She is listed as a lieutenant at Central State Prison for 2014 and as a lieutenant at Burruss C.T.C. for 2015. Burruss does not appear among the facilities to which deaths are attributed during her tenure; the attributed deaths are recorded at Central State.

McEver Probation Detention Center — Chief of Security (2018). Records place her as chief of security at McEver for 2018. No deaths are attributed to her tenure there in the records provided.

Central State Prison — Unit Manager (2019; 2024; January 1–May 15, 2025). She is listed as unit manager at Central State in 2019 and again in 2024, and in concurrent unit manager and deputy warden roles from January 1 to May 15, 2025. The deaths attributed to her leadership tenure are not logged against these postings.

Central State Prison — Deputy Warden of Security (May 16, 2025 – present). This is the posting under which all 11 attributed deaths are recorded. The earliest is Ricky D. Ring, 56, on July 16, 2025, followed that year by James Theodore Miller, 64 (September 22), Joseph Hamm, 36 (October 8) and Ronald Goss, 60 (October 23). Seven more follow in 2026: Miguel Angel Duran, 44 (March 1), Michael Lane Brooks, 77 (April 19), Richard Palmer, 57 (June 2), Raemonte Gentale Harris, 39 (July 3), Mickey Barrett, 64 (July 11), Demetris Raynard Keller, 38 (July 17) and Steve Allen Burk, 38 (July 20) — five of them inside the seven weeks between June 2 and July 20. Ages range from 36 to 77, and seven of the deaths carry the same cause-of-death category in GPS's records; the records provided do not define the category labels.

Other reporting during this same tenure documents incidents beyond the deaths. According to 13WMAZ, three former guards at Central State were accused of beating an inmate and attempting to cover it up (March 2025); three inmates were charged with stabbing another inmate (June 2025); a guard was charged with falsely imprisoning four Department of Family and Children Services employees over child support payments (December 2025); and an inmate was hospitalized after a fight with another inmate in January 2026, an incident the Georgia Department of Corrections said it was investigating. A GPS case submission dated April 13, 2026 alleges that an incarcerated person at Central State showing stroke symptoms was denied timely medical attention, delaying transport to a hospital; that account comes from a family member or witness and is not independently confirmed in the records provided.

Sources

• Georgia Prisoners' Speak facility-death tracking — 11 deaths attributed to Blackshear's leadership tenure, all at Central State Prison; decedent names, ages, dates and cause categories.
• 13WMAZ — reports on the March 2025 alleged guard beating and cover-up, the June 2025 inmate stabbing, the December 2025 false-imprisonment charge against a Central State guard, and the January 2026 inmate fight and hospitalization.
• Georgia Department of Corrections — statements cited by 13WMAZ on the January 2026 fight and its investigation.
• GPS case submission, April 13, 2026 — family/witness allegation of delayed medical care for an inmate with stroke symptoms at Central State Prison.

Synthesized by GPS Intelligence System on Sep 23, 2026 from positions, attributed deaths, lawsuits, intel reports, and news mentions in the public corpus. The supporting data tables follow below.