Mississippi Department Of Corrections Investigated By DOJ

Source: Giles Clarke / Getty

Going to prison already sounds like a nightmare, but as we’ve seen over the last year, the conditions of these facilities and the lack of care that prison officials give to inmates make it that much worse. BOSSIP has previously reported on two prisons, Atlanta’s Fulton County Jail and Shelby County Justice Center in Tennessee, so overrun with lice, bed bugs and vermin that inmates were found dead covered in excrement and bites. Heartless corrections officers and infestation are the hazards the incarcerated persons have to deal with before they even get to the violence done to them by their fellow inmates.

Source: Shepard Sherbell / Getty

That brings us to the CBS News article that details an indicting Department of Justice report on the Mississippi Department of Corrections that claims that the constitutional rights of roughly 7,200 inmates in three different prisons are being violated. The Central Mississippi Correctional Facility, South Mississippi Correctional Institution, and Wilkinson County Correctional are said to be prison summer camps where unmitigated violence, gang activity and contraband trafficking are happening regularly.

The report concludes that MDOC inmates are not being protected from harm and that solitary confinement, which can be argued is more harmful, is being used rather than other forms of behavior control and disciplinary procedures.

“Our investigation uncovered chronic, systemic deficiencies that create and perpetuate violent and unsafe environments for people incarcerated at these three Mississippi facilities,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in a statement after concluding its four-year investigation.

Studies suggest that 20% to 40% of all incarcerated persons at the Central Mississippi facility are affiliated with a gang. The report goes on to say that a violent attack has been carried out every other day for nearly two years. Of the 100 assaults that took place at the South Mississippi prison, 40 of them required hospitalization outside the prison due to the nature of the injuries. Central Mississippi staff members described the gangs as a “government within the facility” that has complete control over the dorms.

It sounds like a living Hell.

The DOJ says that part of the issue is that these facilities are understaffed and the use of 23-hour solitary confinement is often their desperate attempt to maintain order. Sounds like big lawsuits on deck.