Georgia prisons: The AJC's investigation into corruption, dysfunction and violence

A disgraced warden accused of helping prisoners run a criminal scheme. Hundreds of corrupt guards fired for smuggling contraband. Multimillion-dollar heists run from Georgia’s most secure prison. Massive prison-based drug rings. High-security prisons run routinely with a third of the correctional staff they need. Record homicides. A blistering contempt order. A damning federal report.

Over the last year and a half, an investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has revealed these stories — and many more — about the Georgia Department of Corrections. See below for the full list of stories.

Corruption on the inside

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Wave after wave of Georgia prison employees have become criminals themselves — smuggling in contraband or allowing others to do it and at times pocketing payoffs in the thousands, the AJC found in an investigation that identified more than 350 dirty guards, nurses, cooks and even high-ranking officers. The widespread corruption has fueled violence inside the prisons and at times enabled stunning crimes victimizing people on the outside. Among those arrested was Smith State Prison warden Brian Adams. Warrants allege that the ex-warden was paid for being part of a massive contraband scheme run by the Yves Saint Laurent Squad, headed by a prisoner named Nathan Weekes. Weekes has been charged with calling for the hits that resulted in three killings, including the deaths of a beloved 88-year-old resident of Glennville and of a former correctional officer, Jessica Gerling, whose journey from Iowa farm girl to murder victim was detailed by the AJC.

Negligence and incompetence

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An AJC investigation revealed in 2023 that a Georgia prison inmate lay dead in his bunk for five days in early April — his body stuffed inside a mattress and decomposing — before anyone on the prison staff responded. The circumstances surrounding the death of 71-year-old Anthony Zino at Smith State Prison represented a dramatic example of the negligence and incompetence that have gripped the Georgia Department of Corrections in recent years. When the Tattnall County coroner finally was called to the prison, Zino’s body was so badly decomposed that it was leaking fluid and emitting a powerful smell, and two body bags were needed to remove it.

The prisoner who stole millions

Credit: Ga Dept of Corrections

The AJC broke the story of Arthur Lee Cofield Jr., who entered prison for his role in a bungled bank robbery in Douglasville when he was still a teenager. Within the Georgia Department of Corrections, he became an astonishingly adept scammer who, from inside Georgia’s most secure facility, stole $11 million from the Charles Schwab account of billionaire movie producer Sidney Kimmel, turned the money into gold coins, hired a private plane to fly the treasure to Atlanta and used a portion to buy a $4.4 million mansion in Buckhead.

Drug trafficking operations

Credit: Courtesy photos

Overdose deaths spiked in Georgia prisons — places that are supposed to be drug-free zones — the AJC found in 2023. The AJC investigation discovered that drugs are plentiful, in part, because prisoners can run massive drug rings within the Georgia Department of Corrections. From 2015 to 2024, the AJC found, prosecutors have filed 28 major cases involving drug trafficking operations run from inside more than two dozen Georgia prisons. The drug operations can empower prisoners, who get rich from the schemes and can bribe officers to either bring in phones or drugs or become part of the operations that often have ties to violence or fatal overdoses inside and outside state prisons. The cases underscore the pervasive gang activity in the state’s prisons.

A record number of homicides

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The AJC tracked a record-breaking number of prison homicides in 2023, combined with a stunning lack of staff at Georgia’s high-security prisons. As of August 2023, 70% or more of the correctional officer jobs were vacant at eight of the prisons the GDC operates. With so few staff, and with so many prisoners affiliated with gangs, almost anything can happen, especially in prisons overflowing with drugs, cellphones and weapons. The homicides included a correctional officer, Robert Clark, who was stabbed to death in October 2023 at Smith State Prison. Not long after his brother’s murder at Washington State Prison in 2022, Riheem Jefferson received an Instagram message with a video shot by someone on the inside. It showed four prisoners carrying Marquis Jefferson’s bloodied body, like pallbearers, from a cell to the door of their dorm, trying to get someone’s attention. No guards were around to stop the violence — or even notice that a large, deadly brawl had broken out. “My brother had no chance,” Riheem said. The AJC has identified the prisoners killed in homicides, with details, from 2020 through 2023, and revealed graphic video, shot by prisoners, of some of the violence.

The AJC reveals obscured homicides

Credit: Family Photo

In early 2024, with Georgia prisons on pace to set yet another grim record for homicides, the Department of Corrections decided to stop issuing reports on how inmates are dying. The GDC took the step after including the initial cause of death information in its monthly mortality reports for years. But the AJC worked to continue to track homicides, resorting to a variety of other records and sources. The AJC documented a stunning increase in homicides throughout 2024, including the death of a kitchen worker who was shot and killed by an inmate and a series of deaths at Valdosta State Prison, where the warden had been fired, a group of officers had been arrested and 80% of correctional officer positions were vacant. Shane Dillon Griffith was among those killed. The AJC found that Griffith’s beating started after 11 on the night of May 29 and may have lasted until 5:30 the next morning. He had nowhere to run and no one to turn to for help as he was punched, kicked, stomped, beaten with poles and shoes, whipped with a belt and burned. Eleven inmates have been charged in his death. The AJC also revealed two homicides, just days apart, allegedly carried out by the same prisoner within a mental health unit at a women’s prison. “This is not normal. This is not acceptable. And this is indicative of a very toxic, dysfunctional culture and management of this agency,” a national expert on prisons told the AJC.

‘Flagrant violations,’ dire warnings

Credit: Court records

Throughout 2024, the AJC reported that the Georgia Department of Corrections started attracting new scrutiny from officials as even more troubles were revealed. In April, a frustrated federal judge issued a blistering 100-page contempt order finding that state prison officials willfully disregarded requirements to improve deplorable conditions inside the high-security Special Management Unit prison. “Because of the defendants’ longstanding and flagrant violations of the Court’s injunction, the Court finds that coercive sanctions are necessary to compel compliance,” the judge wrote as he imposed fines and installed an independent monitor. Lawmakers expressed concerns about a lack of security in the prisons and took action by increasing spending and appointing a special study committee. Gov. Brian Kemp hired consultants to conduct a deep study of the prison system. A district attorney warned that prison conditions threaten public safety in Georgia. In October, a long-awaited report from the U.S. Department of Justice found excessive violence, rampant sexual assaults, gang-run facilities and other startling conditions in an out-of-control Georgia state prison system. “People are assaulted, stabbed, raped and killed or left to languish inside facilities that are woefully understaffed,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division when announcing the findings, during an afternoon news conference.

The prison system’s perspective

The Georgia Department of Corrections has attributed violence within the prison system to a significant proportion of the prison population having violent offense convictions, gang affiliations and mental health conditions. The agency has also repeatedly said corrupt staff members account for only a fraction of the contraband problem. Drone drops and items thrown over prison walls, officials say, are responsible for the majority of the phones, drugs, weapons and other types of contraband that make it into Georgia’s prisons. GDC Commissioner Tyrone Oliver spoke at length with the AJC about the prison system in 2023.

This story has been updated to reflect responses from the Georgia Department of Corrections.