West Georgia Correctional Facility

"It's perfect."

- Rick Grimes.

The Prison is the central location of Season 3 and the first half of Season 4 of AMC's The Walking Dead. The prison set, as shown in the TV series, was located on the grounds of the Raleigh Studios Atlanta, in Senoia, Georgia.

Pre-Apocalypse
The Prison is revealed to be in close proximity of Newnan, Georgia by Merle Dixon after Maggie divulged her group's location. One of the prisoners, Tomas, explains what happened to The Prison at the beginning of the outbreak. A large rebellion and riot erupted and chaos reigned. He and the other prisoners from the cafeteria were locked inside by one guard, and this guard promised his return and handed the prisoners a revolver, but this never occurred, thus leaving them locked inside the cafeteria with all The Prison's stock of food. This kept them alive for almost 10 months. It can be presumed that since a lot of people died during the rebellion, most of them began to reanimate, managing to kill the rest of the surviving prisoners and guards during the chaos.

First Appearance
The Prison is first seen in the Season 2 finale, "Beside the Dying Fire," indicating that the survivors had abandoned the Greene Family Farm, and were making their way to this location next. It becomes the main setting of Season 3. The building itself is given the name, The 'West Georgia Correctional Facility'.

Discovery and Clearing
"This place can be a goldmine!"

- Rick Grimes.

In Season 3, after spending the winter traveling around the area, the survivors still did not manage to find The Prison and had no idea of its existence. Rick makes a hard decision; it's time to leave the area and try to find shelter elsewhere. While Carl and Beth Greene kept watch on the road and the others were looking at the map, Rick and Daryl decide to give a last hunt in the area, and luckily stumble upon The Prison. At first, Daryl remarks that it is a shame that the place is overrun, but Rick reformulates his plan. The group enters the first fence of The Prison by cutting an opening and closing it after entering. They take out the walkers that roamed through the field from the towers and Rick successfully closes the gate from the prison yard. The group spends the night in the field, celebrating their victory, and, after taking a good look at the yard, Rick informs the group that the place fell early on during the apocalypse and it's supplies (food, medicine, weapons, etc.) were most likely intact. Since most of the walkers are prisoners and guards, he warns the group that they are only beginning to clean up this place.

By the morning, Rick, Daryl, T-Dog, Glenn, and Maggie enter the prison courtyard and eliminate every walker present. They find yet another breach with much more walkers. Rick and Daryl manage to close the gate. They enter Cell Block C and guarantee that the place is safe enough for everybody to come in, and they spend the night sleeping in the cell block, one of the few safe nights they had spent since departing the Greene Family Farm. Once again, by the morning, Rick and his small group, now with the inclusion of Hershel, decide to search around the dark corridors of the Cell Block C in search of a cafeteria and an infirmary. While doing so, they end up being overrun by walkers on the both sides of the corridors and the group gets cut off from Glenn and Maggie. Worried about his daughter, Hershel decides to go back searching. After listening to Maggie's voice echoing through the corridor, he is bit in the ankle by a lurking walker.

They reunite with Glenn and Maggie, grab Hershel and while escaping the walkers and trying to find a safe place, they end up discovering the cafeteria, which was strangely locked with handcuffs from the outside. They break in, and Rick makes the hard decision to amputate Herschel's leg. After chopping off his leg with an ax, Daryl discover prisoners are also hiding in the kitchen. After amputating Hershel's leg, they decide to take him back to Cell Block C to receive medical treatment from Carol. After the prisoners, demanding their rightful place and claiming that The Prison was theirs, Rick and his group decide to clear Cell Block D so that the prisoners can live there, a sufficient distance from Rick's group. In the process of clearing the corridors of Cell Block D, two of the prison inmates die, and a third is presumed dead: one being scratched by a walker and then murdered by another prisoner, one directly killed by Rick, and the last one being locked in a closed yard with a group of walkers. The remaining surviving inmates, Axel and Oscar, make it into Cell Block D. Rick informs them that the area was now theirs and that it's sealed from the rest of The Prison, so they can do whatever they want with it, as long as they don't move any closer to Cell Block C.

Massacre
"How the hell can this be happening?!"

- Rick Grimes A week later, Maggie and Glenn attempt to have sex in one of the guard towers while the others are moving the bodies outside the prison in order to burn them. Axel and Oscar approach the group. Rick, T-Dog and Daryl confront them, and Axel pleads with them to include him and Oscar into his group, and Rick declines. Daryl later explains that they are degenerates but not psychopaths, but maintains that they should not be allowed into the group. Meanwhile, Hershel, has almost fully recovered and is ready to walk with crutches. He decides to take a stroll with Carl, Lori and Beth, while T-Dog, Carol  and Maggie move the vehicles into the prison near an exit. While Rick, Glenn and Daryl go outside the prison to collect firewood. When Rick sees Hershel and the others, the three have a moment of gratitude. Soon Carl spots a group of walkers that have entered the courtyard by breaching through a now-opened gate (the same gate that Rick and Daryl closed earlier). Carl and Lori begin shooting down walkers, while Beth and Hershel escape into a steel cage near the entrance to the cell block. The rest of the survivors rush to their aid, killing as many walkers as they can, just as a prison-wide alarm sounds, making huge amounts of noise. Rick starts to shoot out the speakers. T-Dog is bit on the shoulder as he closes the gate, and then escapes with Carol into a set of corridors. They find that the walkers are loose inside the prison as well. T-Dog, already bitten, sacrifices himself for Carol by charging at the group, clearing the path for Carol.

Elsewhere, Maggie, Carl and Lori escape into another set of corridors and into the machine room of the prison. Rick starts a search party for Maggie, Lori and Carl, and they split up into different areas of the cell block, one group finding more walkers inside the area where they sleep. Lori begins to feel contractions and tells Maggie that she must deliver the baby. She does, and then Lori begins to push, but also to bleed, so Maggie stops her. With no other way to deliver but with C-Section, she tells Maggie to use Carl's knife to cut the baby out. Lori says that she will die, and begins her final words to Carl, calling him smart, strong, brave, and asking him to take care of Rick and the baby when she dies. Maggie cuts into Lori, who then passes out from the pain and blood loss. With the assistance of Carl, Maggie pulls out the baby and uses Carl's coat to wrap it in. Maggie wants to leave but Carl declines reminds her that his mother will turn after she dies. Maggie gets up and walks away, rocking the crying baby. Carl hugs his mother, and reluctantly shoots her in the head with his gun. At the same time, Rick and Daryl go to Axel and Oscar to ask if they did this. Oscar explains that the diesel generators switched off a couple of days after the riots, and someone must have turned them back on. They make their way to the generator room, where they are cornered by walkers. Daryl holds the door while Oscar and Rick search for a switch. Out of nowhere, Andrew, apparently alive, attacks Rick with an axe. They battle, and soon enough Rick is knocked to the floor, where he drops his gun. Andrew charges toward him with his axe, and Oscar throws an empty barrel at Andrew, pushing him back. Oscar picks up Rick's gun, pointing it directly at Rick. After a moment of hesitation, he aims to the left, shoots Andrew in the head, then hands Rick his gun back.

They deactivate the generators, and head back outside through the corridors, where they find the corpse of T-Dog and Carol's scarf. Rick asks Glenn and the others about Lori. A baby crying nearby is heard, and Rick walks over to Maggie and Carl, asking where Lori is. Maggie shakes her head in response, crying, and Rick starts to sob and, in denial, repeats "No, no no", eventually breaking down into tears on the ground.

Woodbury Invasion
The Governor decides to retaliate due to the attack on Woodbury  by Rick's group. The Governor, Martinez, Shumpert, and an unnamed soldier partake in a shootout at the Prison, which results in two casualties: Axel was sniped in the head by the Governor and the unnamed soldier was gunned down by Maggie. Martinez immobilizes Rick on the bridge outside of the Prison, while on the inside, the rest of the group defend themselves. Carl protects Beth and later Carol when she runs over after previously using Axel's corpse as a shield. Michonne uses the overturned prison bus as a cover while firing at The Governor. Maggie shoots back at the Governor's men, eventually taking out the unnamed man in a guard tower as Hershel lies in the grass by the chain-link fence, trapped. After the gunfire comes to a halt, a delivery van crashes through the gates of the Prison, and unleashes a herd of Walkers, which the armored driver escaping back onto the road and is picked up by the Governor's men as they drive away. Rick runs out of ammo and is almost killed by three walkers after being pinned against a chain-link fence, but the Dixon brothers save Rick's life. Glenn returns in time in his pick-up truck and is able to rescue Hershel with help from Michonne. Despite the return of the brothers, there is still a slew of Walkers roaming the prison yard.

Post-Attack
"That truck through the fence thing... That was just him ringing the doorbell."

- Merle Dixon.

In the aftermath of the attack, Rick and the group have retreated away from the courtyard due to it being flooded with walkers. They have also boarded up the catwalk as well as the fence with wood and are preparing for an attack of the Woodbury army.

Since Tyreese and his group are now in Woodbury and they know how to enter the prison, they inform Philip of this and thus put Rick and his group in even more danger.

Rick, Carl, and Michonne went on a scavenging run to King County, Georgia, and there they ran into Morgan Jones. After some discussion, Morgan didn't want to join the prison group. However, he allowed Rick's party to take some of his weapons that he collected. Rick's party took several bags of guns, ammo, a crossbow, grenades as well as a variety of other items. On the way back to the prison, they collected a backpack from the side of the road. The backpack was owned by a hitchhiker that had died and its unknown content may be valuable.

Rick had a meeting with Philip and the latter offered the prison group the deal that if Michonne was given, then Woodbury would back down. Merle Dixon took Michonne to fulfill the deal. However, he let Michonne go. He went to the feed shop and took out at least 7 Woodbury members before falling prey to Philip, and being shot and killed. His zombified corpse was later put down by Daryl.

Second Woodbury Attack
"Remember! They killed eight men back there. Five here last time. They're no different from the biters. They're not gonna stop, until they kill us all, taking everything we've worked so hard for! We're gonna end this, once and for all!"

- The Governor, to the Woodbury Army.

Governor assembles his troops. Tyreese informs the Governor that he and Sasha will not join the fight but offers to stay behind to guard the elderly and children. After a tense moment, The Governor consents. The Governor and his soldiers arrive at the prison, where they shoot up the guard towers, mow down the walkers in the prison yard and storm the cell block. But they find no sign of Rick's group. The Governor splits up his troops to investigate the dark prison corridors (known as the "tombs"). Smoke grenades go off and the prison alarm sounds. Walkers attack The Governor's men, forcing them to retreat outside where Glenn and Maggie ambush them with gunfire. The Governor's army quickly flees the prison.

The Governor becomes enraged when his men ignore his orders to turn the convoy around and finish the fight. In his rage, The Governor guns down all of his own troops except for Karen, who survives the massacre by hiding under the body of a fellow soldier.

Rick and his group decides to go after them and after Rick and his group catches up with the convoy, they discover Karen and take her back to Woodbury where they find Andrea. Once Andrea commits suicide, the Group round up the remaining Woodbury citizens, mostly elderly and children, including Ms. McLeod, and are brought to live at the prison as well as Tyreese and Sasha whom rejoin the prison, and Karen , who escaped the Governor's massacre.

As of "Welcome to the Tombs" the prison's population has increased to 37.

Season 4
"Everything we've been working so hard to keep out... Just found its way in"

- Hershel, about the threat over the prison.

In the six/seven-month period between The Governor's failed attack and the beginning of season 4, The Prison underwent many improvements. For instance, a new gate was created to replace the one that was destroyed. In addition, spikes were added around the perimeter of the entrance in order to spear walkers, making them immobile. However, the walkers have been a bigger threat because now enormous hordes have been weakening the fences.

Additional improvements were made, such as multiple gardens, an outdoor kitchen, a wooden pen for pigs and one horse, and an electric shed featuring an engine generator and numerous power cords, bringing electricity to the prison.

Rick is no longer the leader of the prison group, choosing to focus more on raising his children, Carl and Judith. Instead, a council has been formed to make important decisions for the group, consisting of Daryl, Sasha, Carol, Hershel and Glenn. Anyone who desires entry to The Prison must answer the following three questions: The community, up to when Season 4 starts, has grown to at least 70 people (including refugees from Woodbury and more than half consisting of strangers who have been recruited during the time-gap).
 * How many walkers have you killed?
 * How many people have you killed?
 * Why?

A flu terrorizes the prison survivors and pushes many people to there limits killing many people some debated whether it was safer inside the prison or out. Karen and David catch the flu and are killed by Carol in a attempt to prevent the flu spreading, it doesn't work and Carol is banished for the murders. Eventually the flu is eliminated but The Governor is seen watching the prison.

In "Too Far Gone", The prison is attacked by the Governor and his men. Using a tank, much of the prison is destroyed. The fences are knocked down, and walkers flood the prison. Rick's group abandons the prison, as it is overrun with walkers and damaged beyond repair.

In "After", Michonne lures the two walkers into the spikes around the yard, and she makes them into her pets. Michonne then comes across Hershel's head, zombified. Michonne then stabs the head and leaves the prison.

In "Inmates" Glenn is shown at the prison after he left the bus to find Maggie, but to no avail. He goes inside, gathering whatever weapons and other supplies left in C-Block and dons the riot gear stored in his and Maggies cell to escape the prison. While escaping through the herd of walkers that have overrun the prison he comes across Tara and asks for her help. Together, they escape the prison. With everyone leaving the prison, it is officially abandoned.

Trivia

 * If you type into Google Maps: "Walking Dead Prison, Atlanta", and zoom in on the location with the pink "A", You'll discover the prison set used in the series
 * In the Comic, Rick, Carl, Michonne, Glenn, Maggie, Andrea, Dale, Sophia, Ben and Billy are the only people of Rick's group to have made it out of The Prison alive after the second Woodbury attack.
 * In the show however many more people survived the final attack, Rick, Carl, Daryl, Glenn, Tyreese, Michonne, Maggie, Beth, Sasha, Bob, Lizzie, Mika, Jeanette,  and many other unnamed Prison survivors.
 * In the television series, there are 5 known cell blocks.
 * Cell Block A: The Prison survivors infected with the flu were quarantined here.
 * Cell Block B: Rick's group cleared out this cell block for the Prisoners.
 * Cell Block C: Rick's group cleared out this cell block for themselves.
 * Cell Block D: The Prison Newcomers inhabited this cell block.
 * Cell Block E: The interior is never seen, but the exterior is seen behind the bridge in the courtyard.
 * In a Q&A with Jake Rodkin and Harrison G. Pink, designers on The Walking Dead Video Game, it was stated that the prison that Lee Everett is being transported to in the beginning of the game is the same prison in the Comic Series of The Walking Dead.
 * The prison is seen in the opening credits of Season 3 and Season 4 due to it being a major location for the seasons.
 * The TV Series' prison was hand-built from the ground up by the production crew, rather than using a real prison. This includes the set, decorations, plumbing, and every detail, such as aging and blood splatters.
 * Entertainment Weekly's Darren Franich continually jokingly refers to The Prison as the Lori Grimes Memorial Prison.
 * In the Comic Series, the Prison was completely secure and almost untouched, leaving the survivors free to reside in any part of the Prison; whereas in the TV series the front of the Prison is damaged by fire and destroyed, leaving gaping holes filled with walkers, referred to as the Tombs, and the survivors only having the ability to sleep in blocks C and D.
 * The food seen growing on the prison grounds in Season 4 is real, which the cast and crew frequently eat from.
 * In the Comic, the Prison was originally supposed to be a High School.
 * In Issue 111's Letter Hacks, it confirms the prison was originally set to appear in Issue 7.
 * The spikes that were used to trap and make the walkers immobile was liked the booby traps of Morgan in Clear to lure them, making them immobile and kill them.