Homicides in Georgia prisons at the six month mark this year are outpacing last year, which was one of the deadliest years on record.
In just the first six months of this year, the Georgia Department of Corrections is investigating 42 deaths as possible homicides — already nearly two-thirds of the 66 suspected prison homicides the agency investigated in all of last year.
In June alone, nine incarcerated people, including Dominique Cole, were killed in Georgia prisons.
Two months before he would have walked free, Cole was killed by another prisoner at Wilcox State Prison, the warden told Cole’s sister, Jessica Nicholson. Someone would call her with more details, the warden promised.
The call never came.
Cole had been serving time for over two years for probation violation.
The Georgia Department of Corrections is investigating nine of the 39 deaths in June as homicides. June marked the deadliest month so far in 2025 for killings in Georgia prisons.
Prison homicides have increased over the years in Georgia. In 2017, there were eight homicides in Georgia prisons, and in 2018, there were nine. Last year, the state’s deadliest facility, Macon State Prison, had at least nine homicides.
If the trend continues, the number could surpass last year’s making 2025 the deadliest year for killings in Georgia prisons yet.
Prison violent deaths was among the horrific conditions uncovered by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s yearslong investigation into the state prison system that resulted in the approval of record state spending.
Facing what Gov. Brian Kemp’s consultants called “emergency levels” of staffing vacancies at most of the state’s prisons, the Legislature approved $434 million in new funding for the Georgia Department of Corrections for the current fiscal year. They also approved around $200 million in new spending for the Fiscal Year 2026 budget, which started in July.
Kemp’s proposals come after the AJC, in a series of investigations, highlighted deep failures within the prison system. The AJC in 2023 detailed extreme understaffing, extensive illicit drug use by inmates, extraordinary violence and large criminal enterprises run by prisoners that victimized people well beyond the prison walls. The stories also exposed widespread corruption in the system, with hundreds of GDC employees arrested and fired for smuggling in drugs and other forms of contraband.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
The AJC continued to expose failures within the GDC throughout 2024, including documenting record-setting homicides that suggest a complete breakdown in security even as the prison system took steps to limit information about killings.
Sanchez Jackson was killed at Macon State Prison in June. Like Cole’s family, Jackson’s mother received a brief call from the warden saying her son had died, with a promise to follow up that never came. Jackson’s sister, Natalie Jackson, called the investigator for more information and was met with what she described as “short and vague” answers. The investigator told her there was a rumor her brother had died in a gang attack.
“The fact that nobody’s given us any type of answers — it’s hard to deal with,” she said. “A big chunk of me is gone now because the system failed him.”
Cole had called his family to tell them about the conditions at Wilcox State Prison, saying guards were tied to gangs with gang members even signing off on actions for the guards. Jackson told his sister that as many as four men were packed into one cell, rotating spots just to sleep.
Cole’s descriptions to his family match official reports. Last year, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a report on the Georgia Department of Corrections’ gang-run prisons riddled with regular violence and sexual assault.
“We’re really just creating vast populations of people who are losing hope,” Atteeyah Hollie, deputy director of the Southern Center for Human Rights, said. “They are being housed in unsafe places without people to protect them, and it just naturally breeds a level of death that we are seeing at this point.”
Joan Heath, director of communications for the Georgia Department of Corrections, said in a statement to the AJC that the department is thankful for the support of Kemp and the General Assembly. The money, she added, will address facility operations including the implementation of single-man cells.
“We have worked tirelessly to address correctional staffing challenges, eradicate weapons and contraband in our facilities, employ new technology and resources to help keep our staff and inmates safe and set offenders on paths to success upon their release,” Heath said.
Cole’s possessions still have yet to make it back to the family. Of his belongings, the prison returned just five letters to Nicholson. When Cole was incarcerated, Nicholson said, he had his wallet on him, which the prison did not return.
“I needed his Social Security card, and they didn’t even send that,” she said.
Jackson has been calling Wilcox State Prison for weeks asking to retrieve her brother’s belongings. She hasn’t gotten a response.
“My brother has been officially taken away from me,” she said.
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