Jackson, Tracey Catina

Tenure Summary

Tracey Catina Jackson joined the Georgia Department of Corrections in 2013 as a part-time instructor at Pulaski State Prison and built a career as a behavioral health counselor, rising through successive supervisory grades between 2015 and 2025. On March 16, 2026, Jackson was appointed Deputy Warden of Care and Treatment at Wilcox State Prison — her first accountability-tier leadership posting. GPS records show one death attributed to a facility during her leadership tenure: Earnest Sims, age 44, recorded on March 16, 2026 — the same date her appointment began. No lawsuits naming Jackson as a defendant appear in GPS records.

What Happened on Their Watch

Wilcox State Prison — Deputy Warden of Care and Treatment (March 16, 2026–present)

GPS records show that Earnest Sims, 44, died at Wilcox State Prison on March 16, 2026 — the first day of Jackson's tenure as Deputy Warden of Care and Treatment. The cause category is recorded in GPS records; no further detail about cause or circumstances is available in the structured data. Jackson stepped into a facility already carrying documented concerns: the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that a prisoner named Cole allegedly told his family that guards at Wilcox were tied to gangs, with gang members signing off on actions for guards, and that the warden promised Cole's family a follow-up call about his death that never came. A separate GPS relay-detected incident logged April 2, 2026 — weeks into Jackson's tenure — describes multiple stabbings at Wilcox resulting in a lockdown, with one inmate reported transported. The AJC also reported that the DOJ found Georgia's gang-run prisons were riddled with regular violence and sexual assault, a systemic finding that predates but overlaps Jackson's appointment. Earlier in 2025, before Jackson's arrival, nine inmates were sent to the hospital with stab wounds after a gang fight at Wilcox, per GPS records, and two homicides — Mariol Juante Rawls, 41 (August 27, 2024), and Arthur Williams, 55 (July 18, 2024) — were recorded at the facility. Those deaths preceded Jackson's leadership role. The AJC separately reported that the alleged mental health failure involving James Wheeler — officials allegedly failing to recognize his mental health history and placing him in solitary confinement, where he was found hanging — occurred at Wilcox State Prison; the timing relative to Jackson's appointment is not specified in the source data.

Jackson's prior non-leadership postings at Pulaski State Prison (2013) and Dooly State Prison (2020) coincide with documented incidents at both facilities, though she held no accountability-tier role at either. At Dooly, the AJC reported allegations of a coroner stating Carlos Omar Soldiew-Acosta may have been dead more than 24 hours before discovery (June 2024), and Georgia Public Broadcasting reported an allegation that medical staff put a patient's treatment "on the back burner," contributing to a death from sepsis. GPS records also document a pattern of repeated gang-related stabbings at Dooly in early 2026, a November 2025 homicide (Darrow Brown), and two deaths in early 2025 — Joshua Parrott (January 9, 2025), initially classified as suicide and later reclassified as homicide by strangulation, and Horario Philmore (February 2, 2025), officially ruled a suicide though inmate reports alleged strangulation. None of these incidents occurred during a period when Jackson held a leadership-tier role.

Sources

• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — reporting on Dooly State Prison homicides, Wilcox State Prison gang allegations, DOJ findings on Georgia prisons, Pulaski State Prison medical care failures, and GDC systemic sexual misconduct
• Georgia Public Broadcasting — reporting on DOJ deliberate-indifference findings and Dooly State Prison medical care allegations (October 2024)
• WGXA — reporting on Julius Deshawn Williams Jr. methamphetamine smuggling plea at Dooly State Prison
• WALB — reporting on Abraham Rivas phone fraud scheme operated from Dooly State Prison
• 13WMAZ — reporting on gang-related fight at Dooly State Prison
• GPS records — death of Earnest Sims at Wilcox State Prison (March 16, 2026); relay-detected violence incidents at Dooly and Wilcox State Prisons (2026); staffing and overcrowding reports at Dooly State Prison; Jackson position and salary history

Synthesized by GPS Intelligence System on May 10, 2026 from positions, attributed deaths, lawsuits, intel reports, and news mentions in the public corpus. The supporting data tables follow below.