Jones, Joshua

Tenure Summary

Joshua Jones's Georgia Department of Corrections career began in 2007 as a correctional officer at Walker State Prison and moved through the ranks at Hays State Prison — sergeant (2013) and correctional officer (2015) — before a series of payroll entries with no facility listed: correctional lieutenant (2016), correctional unit manager (2017–2019), and deputy warden (2020–2023). On July 1, 2023, GPS's personnel index records him as Warden at Hays State Prison, a facility-lead post he held — later carried on payroll as "Warden 3" at the same facility — through a recorded end date of July 4, 2026. His status is listed as active. Payroll records also show a single-day entry as a correctional officer at Valdosta State Prison on Nov. 22, 2023, alongside a same-day Warden 3 entry at Hays.

GPS's accountability index attributes 21 deaths to his facility-leadership tenure, all 21 at Hays State Prison. Two federal lawsuits naming him as a defendant were filed while he held the warden's role there; both remain pending. No news report in the index names him directly.

What happened on their watch

Hays State Prison — Warden (recorded later as Warden 3), July 1, 2023 – July 4, 2026

The 21 deaths the index attributes to this tenure make it the sole facility posting in the dataset. The most-recent sample of those deaths (capped, and not itself a total) lists decedents ranging in age from 30 to 82, including Robert Millan Cook (57), Ronnie Joe Criswell (67), Randoulf Gutierrez (42) and Talore Stihles Blackford (31) in 2023; Jeremy Edward Price (36), Theron Morrell Hendrix (31), Freddie Lee III Talley (31), Timothy Darmofal (58), Keith Johnson (57), Mackendy Pierrette (50), Thomas Johnson (82), Lawrence L. Williams (30) and Joey Griffin (54) in 2024; Ralph Carter (39), Tommy Joe Strickland (60), Raymont Savion Farley (36), James Cannon (48) and Barcel Roylee Ward (39) in 2025; and Melvin Gay Johnson (35) and Corey Anwar Dubose (47) in 2026.

Several of these deaths are documented in GPS incident entries with stated circumstances. Blackford died Oct. 28, 2023, from multiple stab wounds to the neck; Price died March 2, 2024, from stab wounds to the neck and chest, classified a homicide in incident reports and confirmed by his death certificate; Talley died May 6, 2024, from a stab wound to the chest, with an incident report recording four other prisoners and multiple sharpened weapons ranging from 10.5 to 22 inches (a separate Jan. 10, 2025 entry says seven weapons from 9 to 22 inches were recovered and three inmates received disciplinary reports but were not charged). Melvin Gay Johnson, recorded in the deaths list on Jan. 27, 2026, is the subject of incident entries dated Jan. 25, 2026, describing him as beaten, brain-dead and dying on life support "after being returned to dorm despite safety concerns" / "against his request." Those entries are allegations recorded in GPS's log.

Allegations logged at Hays during his tenure as Warden 3 include an April 1, 2026 report of an incarcerated person stabbed and requiring emergency medical intervention on scene, and an April 5, 2026 report of a compound assault reportedly prompting retaliation by the victim's associates. Multiple April 1, 2026 incident entries describe a high-ranking ROLACC Blood leader stabbed multiple times in the neck during an official inspection and requiring CPR.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution items logged during the same period include a Jan. 28, 2026 report that Hays Lieutenant Lakeshia Thomas was recorded arranging to smuggle marijuana for gang member Jarico Deshun Brown (GBI evidence from 2019; she pleaded guilty in April 2022 and was sentenced to 15 years, two to serve in confinement), and a March 31, 2025 report that a former Hays guard smuggled methamphetamine and other contraband to inmates for over a month (federal officials announced his sentencing Feb. 10, 2025). A Jan. 21, 2025 AJC item records Tammy Price's allegation that GDC omits manner-of-death information from mortality reports to conceal its inability to protect prisoners.

Policy entries logged under this tenure include Georgia's $600 million prison spending surge (Jan. 7, 2025) with the first 126-bed "hardened" module under construction at Hays, and a $24 million hardened unit at Hays announced Oct. 19, 2025. GPS's log also carries a historical entry recalling three Hays homicides within one month in late 2012–early 2013, an officer stabbed 22 times, and a finding that 42% of locks were non-functional — events predating his tenure.

Litigation

• White v. Jones, No. 4:26-cv-00017 (N.D. Ga.), filed Jan. 14, 2026 — pending. Jones listed as defendant.
• Daker v. Jones, No. 4:24-cv-00173 (N.D. Ga.), filed July 15, 2024 — pending. Jones listed as defendant.
• Vaquera v. Sprayberry, No. 4:22-cv-00089 (N.D. Ga.), filed April 13, 2022, terminated Feb. 5, 2024 — indexed among cases where Jones is a defendant, though the case name does not include him. No outcome amount recorded.

Sources

• Georgia Prisoners' Speak personnel and incident index — death records, cause coding, and incident/allegation entries at Hays State Prison, 2023–2026
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — reporting on the Hays lieutenant's contraband arrangement, the former Hays guard's meth smuggling, and Tammy Price's allegations on withheld manner-of-death data
• CourtListener federal dockets — White v. Jones; Daker v. Jones; Vaquera v. Sprayberry (N.D. Ga.)
• Hays State Prison incident reports and death certificates, as cited in GPS entries
• GBI investigation records (2019) and federal sentencing announcement, as recorded in GPS incident entries

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.