Georgia has two federal prisons run by the Bureau of Prisons — FCI Atlanta and FCI Jesup — along with the Folkston ICE detention complex, which holds immigration detainees under a private contract rather than BOP custody. If you are trying to locate someone held in any federal prison in Georgia, the BOP’s online inmate locator is the starting point, and it covers every federal inmate from 1982 onward.
The Federal Facilities in Georgia
Two active Bureau of Prisons institutions sit in the state. Both hold male inmates. A third site, the McRae Correctional Facility, closed on November 30, 2022 and no longer houses federal prisoners.1Federal Bureau of Prisons. BOP Ends Use of Privately Owned Prisons A separate immigration detention complex at Folkston operates outside the BOP system but is often what people mean when they ask about federal detention in Georgia.
FCI Atlanta
FCI Atlanta sits at 601 McDonough Boulevard SE in Atlanta. The main building dates to 1902 and was known for most of its history as USP Atlanta, though it has not held high-security federal prisoners for more than 30 years.2Prison Legal News. Atlanta Federal Prison Gets Another Reboot It now operates as a low-security federal correctional institution and also houses a detention center for pretrial detainees in the Northern District of Georgia, plus a satellite camp. Total population is roughly 1,897 male inmates across those components.3Federal Bureau of Prisons. FCI Atlanta
The redesignation from USP to FCI followed a 2021 upheaval. The BOP transferred most of the prison’s population out after revelations of widespread staff corruption and contraband smuggling, and reassigned 44 staff-level managers to other locations.4Forbes. A Review of the Federal Prison in Atlanta Shows an Agency in Crisis The facility reopened as a low-security institution months later. A May 2023 Justice Department Inspector General report found that internal BOP audits had painted a picture “in stark contrast to actual conditions there,” in part because audit visits had been announced in advance.5Prison Legal News. Federal Watchdog Finds BOP Staffing Maintenance Crisis The building’s exterior may still bear the old USP Atlanta name pending a formal historical survey, even though official documentation now uses FCI Atlanta.3Federal Bureau of Prisons. FCI Atlanta
FCI Jesup
FCI Jesup is a federal correctional complex for male offenders at 2600 Highway 301 South in Jesup, Georgia. It runs at three security levels on one site:
- Medium-security main institution, roughly 1,038 inmates
- Low-security satellite prison, roughly 509 inmates
- Minimum-security satellite camp, roughly 131 inmates
Total population across the complex is about 1,678. The facility offers standard BOP programming, commissary access, and legal reference materials, and undergoes independent audits for compliance with the Prison Rape Elimination Act.6Federal Bureau of Prisons. FCI Jesup
Folkston ICE Detention Complex
Folkston is not a Bureau of Prisons facility and does not hold BOP inmates. It is an immigration detention site in Charlton County, operated by The GEO Group under contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and it encompasses the Folkston ICE Processing Center along with the D. Ray James Correctional Facility.7The GEO Group. D. Ray James Processing Center GEO Group has run the center since 2017 under an agreement between ICE and Charlton County.8The Current GA. ICE Finds Violations at Folkston Detention Center but Continues to Contract With the GEO Group The federal government is providing $96 million over two years to double the complex to roughly 3,000 beds, which would make it the largest immigrant detention center in the United States.9NPR. ICE Detainees Folkston Georgia
Conditions at the facility have drawn repeated scrutiny. A November 2021 DHS Inspector General report documented water leaks, mold, insect infestations, and inoperable toilets. A 2024 review found medical staff operating “beyond safe limits,” a deficiency investigators linked to the April 2024 death of 57-year-old detainee Jaspal Singh; investigators also found that medical staff lacked emergency 911 training. A May 2025 Government Accountability Office report concluded that oversight concerns persist. The GEO Group stated in July 2025 that it remains in “strict compliance with ICE detention standards.”8The Current GA. ICE Finds Violations at Folkston Detention Center but Continues to Contract With the GEO Group Because Folkston holds ICE detainees rather than BOP inmates, the BOP inmate locator will not find someone held there; ICE operates its own online detainee locator.
How Inmates Are Assigned to a Georgia Facility
Federal inmates do not choose where they serve their sentences. All placements come from the BOP’s Designation and Sentence Computation Center in Grand Prairie, Texas.10Federal Bureau of Prisons. Inmate Designations After sentencing, the court and probation office send documents to the center, which calculates a security point score based on factors including criminal history, history of violence, age, education, and substance abuse background. That score drives the security level of the facility assignment.11Federal Bureau of Prisons. Program Statement 5100.08
Beyond security level, the Bureau weighs medical and mental health needs, program availability, bed space, judicial recommendations, separation orders that keep co-defendants or witnesses apart, and proximity to the inmate’s anticipated release residence. The BOP generally tries to place inmates within 500 driving miles of their release address, but security and programming can override that preference.10Federal Bureau of Prisons. Inmate Designations So an inmate sentenced in Georgia will not automatically end up at FCI Atlanta or FCI Jesup, and someone sentenced out of state may be placed there. Transfer requests after initial placement have to come from the inmate’s institutional unit team and are evaluated by the same central office under the same criteria.
Finding Someone in a Federal Prison
Use the BOP’s online inmate locator, which covers every federal inmate from 1982 to the present.12Federal Bureau of Prisons. Inmate Locator You can search by name or by an identifier such as a BOP register number, FBI number, or INS number. Results show the inmate’s name, register number, age, race, sex, projected release date, and current facility. There is no state filter, but the facility shown will tell you whether the person is at FCI Atlanta, FCI Jesup, or somewhere else.
A few things to keep in mind when reading the results:
- Projected release dates can be out of date, because sentences are recalculated under the First Step Act’s earned-time-credit provisions.
- A result of “Released” or “Not in BOP Custody” means the person is no longer in federal prison, though they may be in another jurisdiction’s custody or on supervised release.12Federal Bureau of Prisons. Inmate Locator
- The locator will not return anyone held by ICE at Folkston or anywhere else; immigration detainees are tracked through ICE’s own system.
For information the locator does not provide, you can submit a Freedom of Information Act request to the Bureau of Prisons.13USA.gov. Prisoner Records
Southeast Regional Office
Both Georgia BOP facilities fall under the Bureau’s Southeast Regional Office, located in Atlanta at 715 McDonough Boulevard SE, next to FCI Atlanta. The region oversees 23 institutions and four residential reentry management field offices across Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Puerto Rico, with a combined offender population of roughly 27,644.14Federal Bureau of Prisons. Southeast Regional Office The regional office is the appropriate point of contact when an issue cannot be resolved at the facility level.