Blackshear, Janice Denise

Tenure Summary

Janice Denise Blackshear has served in the Georgia Department of Corrections since at least 2007, rising from a Correctional Officer at Macon State Prison through supervisory roles—Lieutenant at Central State Prison and Burruss Correctional Training Center, Chief of Security at McEver Probation Detention Center—to leadership-tier positions. In 2019, she became a Unit Manager at Central State Prison, a role she returned to in 2024 as Correctional Unit Manager with a salary of $61,207. On January 1, 2025, Blackshear was promoted to Deputy Warden at Central State Prison, and on May 16, 2025, she was moved to Deputy Warden of Security, a post she holds as of the latest records.

GPS records attribute a total of 12 deaths to Blackshear’s leadership tenure—all during her service as Deputy Warden or Deputy Warden of Security at Central State Prison, spanning January 2025 through July 2026. No lawsuits name her as a defendant.

What happened on their watch

Blackshear’s earlier postings—Macon State Prison (2007), Central State Prison (2014–2015), Burruss C.T.C. (2015), McEver Detention Center (2018), and Central State Prison Unit Manager (2019)—carry no attributed facility-leader deaths in GPS data. The 12 deaths on her watch occurred exclusively during her tenure as deputy warden at Central State Prison.

Between January 28, 2025, and July 11, 2026, 12 incarcerated people died at Central State Prison while Blackshear served first as Deputy Warden (through May 15, 2025) and then as Deputy Warden of Security. The decedents ranged in age from 36 to 77. Among them:

• Matthew Maddox (January 28, 2025) died of cerebral herniation due to extremely high blood pressure, according to the death record notes.
• Lamancha Ware (March 2, 2025), Travis Jamal Gaither (April 21, 2025), and Ricky D. Ring (July 16, 2025) each died with cause category 6 (unspecified/unclassified).
• Ricky Eugene Rogers died on April 21, 2025; the notes list natural causes and drug overdose in C-building.
• James Theodore Miller (September 22, 2025) and Ronald Goss (October 23, 2025) also fell into category 6.
• Joseph Hamm, 36, died on October 8, 2025, after an accidental overdose—reported by a fellow resident and confirmed in GPS notes, which describe a balloon of opiates bursting in his mouth during a late-night transfer.
• Miguel Angel Duran, 44, died on March 1, 2026, in what an AI-classified Telegram relay described as a suicide in the segregation unit; GPS records classify the cause as category 2.
• Michael Lane Brooks, 77, died on April 19, 2026 (category 6).
• Richard Palmer died on June 2, 2026 (category 6).
• Mickey Barrett died on July 11, 2026, with cause category 1, a classification often associated with homicide in this dataset; no further details are provided.

During the same period, Central State faced multiple publicized incidents. A 13WMAZ report detailed that three former guards were accused of beating an inmate and attempting a cover-up in March 2025, and another guard was charged in December 2025 with falsely imprisoning four DFCS employees over child support payments. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Georgia Public Broadcasting have documented systemic failures across Georgia prisons—including severe staffing shortages that allow gang control, violence, and contraband infiltration—that coincide with Blackshear’s deputy warden tenure.

Sources

• GPS records — personnel profile and deaths-during-tenure list for Janice Denise Blackshear
• Death record notes — details on accidental overdose (Joseph Hamm) and cerebral herniation (Matthew Maddox)
• AI-detected Telegram relay report — suicide report in segregation unit (Miguel Angel Duran)
• 13WMAZ — allegations of guard misconduct at Central State Prison (March 2025 beating/cover-up, December 2025 false imprisonment of DFCS employees)
• Georgia Public Broadcasting — reporting on severe staff shortages enabling gang control
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — coverage of DOJ findings on Georgia prison conditions

Synthesized by GPS Intelligence System on Jul 12, 2026 from positions, attributed deaths, lawsuits, intel reports, and news mentions in the public corpus. The supporting data tables follow below.