By the Department of Correction's description, Hays manages "some of the state's most challenging offenders".

Two Hays guards were also injured by stabbings in late January even as the facility was on full security lockdown.

In May 2012, a CERT Officer was stabbed twice in the face,[3] and the father of an inmate claimed that he was forced to pay $19,000 ransom to other current Hays prisoners, or else his son would be hurt or killed.

Hays is one of several high-security Georgia state prisons found to have a large percentage of inoperative locks.

A September 2012 article reports that auditors found 42% of the locks in Hays either didn't work or could be easily defeated.