Hancock State Prison is a

Georgia Department of Corrections The Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC) is an agency of the U.S. state of Georgia operating state prisons. The agency is headquartered in Forsyth, on the former campus of Tift College. Headquarters The GDC has its offices in Gibson Hall, ...

state prison for men located in

Hancock County, Georgia Hancock County is a county located in the East Central part of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 8,735. The county seat is Sparta. The county was created on December 17, 1793, and named for John Hancock, a ...

. The facility opened in 1991 and currently has a capacity of 1191 prisoners. In 2010, Hancock state prison participated in the

2010 Georgia prison strike The 2010 Georgia prison strike was a prison strike involving prisoners at 7 prisons in the U.S. state of Georgia. The strike, organized by the prisoners using contraband cell phones, began on December 9 and ended on December 15. It was report ...

using contraband cell phones. The goal was to improve safety in Georgia state prisons and get rid of free labor. A riot in November 2011 left 12 prisoners injured. The fight was gang-related, and organized with contraband cell phones. Hancock is one of several high-security Georgia state prisons found to have a large percentage of inoperative locks. In June 2012 auditors found 28% of Hancock's locks either didn't work or could be defeated. Hancock was one of nine Georgia state prisons implicated in an FBI sting operation announced in February 2016. The agency indicted 47 correction officers who'd agreed to deliver illegal drugs while in uniform. These charges were "part of a larger public corruption investigation into Georgia Correctional Facilities". Convicted serial killer

Wayne Williams Wayne Bertram Williams (born May 27, 1958) is an American convicted murderer and suspected serial killer who is in life imprisonment for the 1981 killings of two men in Atlanta, Georgia. Although never tried for the additional murders, he is als ...

is serving a life sentence at Hancock, as is

Charles Lee Duffy Charles Lee Duffy (born May 10, 1976) is an American serial killer and rapist who murdered three women in the metro Atlanta area between June and August 1997. Within days of the final murder, Duffy was turned in by his mother, who had recognized ...

Notable inmates

References

{{State prisons in Georgia Prisons in Georgia (U.S. state) Buildings and structures in Hancock County, Georgia 1991 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state)