A Former Guard Speaks: 10 Years Inside Georgia’s Failing Prisons

TL;DR

A former Georgia prison guard named Tyler Ryals worked in the system for 10 years. He saw it fall apart from the inside. He says prisons are so short on staff that one guard may watch over 1,250 people alone. People are dying at a rate of about one per day since 2020. When Ryals tried to report these dangers, the state told him to take it back or lose his job.

Why This Matters

If your loved one is in a Georgia state prison, this is about their safety — right now.

Tyler Ryals worked as a guard from 2014 to 2024. He served at Telfair, Valdosta, and Johnson State Prisons. He saw the crisis grow worse each year. His stories match what the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) found in October 2024. The DOJ said Georgia’s prisons break the law by failing to keep people safe.

This matters because:

• Your family member may go hours or days without anyone checking on them. Guards are supposed to count every person every 5 hours. Ryals says days go by with no count at all.
• There aren’t enough guards to stop violence. Prisons that need 25 guards may only have 5.
• Weapons are everywhere. In one dorm for 80 people, Ryals found over 100 homemade knives.
• Drugs flood in by drone because there aren’t enough staff to stop it.
• People who speak up get punished. Ryals was told to take back his claims or be fired.

Key Takeaway: The state of Georgia is failing to keep people in prison safe, and the evidence comes from one of their own former guards.

Almost No Guards Are Left

Ryals says more than 75% of Georgia’s 34 state prisons are very low on staff. He names Telfair, Valdosta, Washington, Hays, and Johnson as some of the worst.

At times, he was the only guard on the grounds at Telfair. That prison holds about 1,250 people at the highest level of security. One person watching over 1,250.

Prisons are meant to have at least 25 guards on duty. But Ryals says some shifts had only 5. That means 80% of the guard posts were empty.

From 2014 to 2019, the share of male guards dropped sharply. It went from about half male to only about 10% male. Ryals says: “We lost all the males.” The state’s own leaders admitted they need about 3,000 more men to staff the prisons.

Key Takeaway: Some prisons have only one guard for over 1,000 people in maximum security.

Guards Forced to Work Up to 70 Hours Straight

When there aren’t enough guards, the ones who show up can’t leave. Ryals says guards were stuck at their posts for 24, 40, or even 70 hours at a time.

Think about that. A guard working for nearly three days straight. No sleep. No break. Watching over hundreds of people.

This caused even more guards to quit. As Ryals put it: “It doesn’t take but a few months of leaving people on post for two or three days at a time before people are quitting left and right.”

This creates a death spiral. Fewer guards means longer shifts. Longer shifts means more guards quit. More quitting means even fewer guards.

Key Takeaway: Brutal work hours drove guards to quit, which made the staffing crisis even worse.

Deaths Skyrocketed: From 5 Killings to 72 in Less Than 10 Years

In 2014, when Ryals started, there were about 5 murders across all Georgia prisons for the whole year.

By 2023, that number rose to about 72 murders. That is a jump of roughly 1,340%.

But killings are only part of the picture. Ryals says that since 2020, a person in Georgia’s prisons has died every single day on average. He puts the total at over 1,600 deaths since 2020.

These aren’t just numbers. These are people. Someone’s child. Someone’s parent. Someone’s partner. And many of them died because the state did not have enough staff to keep them safe.

Key Takeaway: Prison killings in Georgia went from 5 per year to 72 per year in under a decade.

People Found Dead After Days — With No One Checking

Guards are supposed to check on people in lockdown cells every 30 minutes. At Valdosta State Prison on Christmas Eve, that didn’t happen.

A man was strangled by his cellmate. His body was not found for over two days. Ryals says: “His face had already started decaying and everything by the time the officers even noticed that this guy was dead.”

This wasn’t an accident. It was the result of not having enough staff to do basic safety checks. Over two days means at least 96 required checks were missed.

Ryals also describes finding people who had been tied up and held under beds for days. He says: “You get in there and save them, and they’re crying and stuff, telling you thank you, that they’ve been in there for four days.”

Key Takeaway: A man was killed in his cell and not found for over two days because no one was checking.

More Weapons Than People

During searches at Telfair State Prison, Ryals found over 100 homemade knives — called shanks — in a single dorm that held 80 people. That means there were more weapons than people in that room.

He also talks about “stompings.” For about 30 years, people in prison were given boots with hard composite toes. These boots were used to stomp people to death. The state finally took the boots away around 2020, after several people were killed this way.

In 2017, when Ryals tracked gangs at Telfair, he counted about 700 active gang members at any given time. He says: “These guys are all active gang members. They’re all armed, and there’s no security there.”

Key Takeaway: In one 80-person dorm, guards found over 100 homemade knives — more than one per person.

Drugs and Weapons Flown In by Drone

People in prison use cell phones to plan drone drops. They create a distraction on one side of the grounds. Then drones fly in packages that weigh 20 to 30 pounds. These packages are full of drugs, weapons, and cell phones.

There aren’t enough guards to stop it.

At Telfair in 2020 and 2021, Ryals says he could walk around the grounds at any time and see 50 or more people high on drugs. He says they would be “laid up against the wall, laying on the floor puking.” Sometimes the drugs made people paranoid, and they would stab someone.

The drugs often came on strips of paper soaked in synthetic chemicals. These didn’t show up on standard drug tests.

Key Takeaway: Drones deliver huge packages of drugs and weapons because there aren’t enough guards to stop them.

Nobody Is Counting — And People Escape Without Anyone Knowing

Georgia law says every person in prison must be counted at least every 5 hours. Ryals says days go by with no count at all. In some cases, the people in prison were in charge of counting each other.

This led to escapes that no one noticed. Ryals says some people were gone for over a day before anyone knew. At Johnson State Prison, he says someone could have escaped and been gone for two or three weeks with no one finding out.

This is not just a prison problem. It’s a public safety problem for the towns around these prisons.

Key Takeaway: Required head counts are skipped for days, and escapes can go unnoticed for weeks.

A Riot That Reached Visiting Families

About two months before his interview, Washington State Prison had a riot. There were so few guards that all the gates were left unlocked.

When the fight started in one building, people flooded out and took over the whole prison grounds. They reached the room where families were visiting. Only one female guard was there to protect all those visitors — mothers, children, and other loved ones.

Ryals says the only reason visitors weren’t hurt is that the violence was aimed at other people in prison, not at the families. But families were still trapped in the middle of it.

Key Takeaway: A riot spread across an entire prison because gates were unlocked due to staff shortages, putting visiting families at risk.

When Guards Speak Up, They Get Punished

When Ryals reported these dangers, the state gave him three choices:

1. Say he was just “venting” and take it all back.
2. Resign (quit).
3. Get fired on the spot.

Ryals refused to quit or take back what he said. He told them: “Do your paperwork.”

He did get a meeting with a top official. But Ryals says the official lied to him. The official claimed the National Guard was “mostly female” and couldn’t help. Ryals says the National Guard is 80% male.

Near the end of that meeting, the official admitted the truth. He said: “If you know anywhere we can get about 3,000 men, that’s what needs to happen.”

The state knows the problem. It punishes the people who say it out loud.

Key Takeaway: Georgia punishes guards who report dangerous conditions instead of fixing the problems they report.

These Prisons Could Be Taken Over at Any Time

Ryals names four prisons — Telfair, Smith, Hays, and Hancock — that hold 7,000 to 8,000 people combined. He says these prisons are so poorly staffed that people inside could take them over “at any time they want.”

He says it would only take “two or three highly motivated guys” to do it.

The U.S. DOJ agrees the danger is real. In October 2024, they found that Georgia’s prison conditions “pose a substantial risk of serious harm” and that the state has been “deliberately indifferent” — meaning they know about the danger and choose not to act.

Key Takeaway: Multiple prisons holding thousands of people are so understaffed they could be fully taken over, according to this former guard.

Who Is Tyler Ryals?

Tyler Ryals worked for the Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC) for 10 years, from about 2014 to 2024. He served at three maximum-security prisons: Telfair, Valdosta, and Johnson.

He held several roles:
– Sergeant
– Emergency Response Team (ERT) commander
– Gang coordinator (Telfair, 2017)
– Instructor

His testimony matches the DOJ’s October 2024 findings. GPS considers him a credible witness on what happens inside Georgia’s prisons.

Note: Ryals holds some personal views on other topics that GPS does not share or endorse. We cite his firsthand reports about prison conditions only.

Glossary

• Shakedown: A thorough search of a cell or dorm to find hidden items like weapons or drugs.
• Shank: A homemade stabbing weapon made from things like metal or plastic.
• Lockdown unit: A part of the prison where people are kept in their cells almost all day — usually 22 to 24 hours. Also called “restrictive housing.”
• Count / Inmate count: When guards count every person in the prison to make sure everyone is there. Georgia law says this must happen at least every 5 hours.
• Strips: Paper soaked in synthetic drugs that can be smuggled in easily. These drugs often don’t show up on standard tests.
• ERT (Emergency Response Team): A special group of guards trained to handle riots, fights, and other emergencies.
• Gang coordinator: A staff member who tracks gang activity and members inside a prison.
• Rigor mortis: When a body becomes stiff after death. This takes a few hours to set in, so finding a stiff body means the person has been dead for a long time.
• Composite-toe boots: Work boots with a hard toe cap. People in prison were given these and used them as weapons until they were taken away around 2020.
• Compound: The whole prison grounds inside the fence, including all buildings and yards.
• DOJ: Department of Justice — the main law enforcement agency of the U.S. government.
• GDC: Georgia Department of Corrections — the state agency that runs Georgia’s prisons.
• ACA: American Correctional Association — a private group that reviews and approves prison standards.

Read the Source Document

📄 Tyler Ryals — Corroborated Testimony Quote Bank (PDF)

🎥 Original interview: Christian White, YouTube

Other Versions of This Explainer

We write each explainer for different audiences:

• 📋 Legislator Version — For lawmakers and their staff
• 📰 Media Version — For reporters covering Georgia’s prisons
• 📣 Advocate Version — For organizations and advocates working on prison reform