updated Sun. April 7, 2019
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U.S. News & World Report
March 19, 2018
Prison officials in Mississippi say a correctional officer has been arrested after synthetic marijuana in her car parked at the facility. March 18, 2018, at ... Mississippi Department of Corrections officials told WAPT-TV on Friday that 38-year-old Katrina Denise Turner was arrested Wednesday. Authorities say aÃÂ ...
WJTV
March 16, 2018
Jiang-Stein, whose story of being born in prison is captured in her book Prison Baby: A Memoir, said Mississippi's prison system was a perfect fit for the pilot program. She previously visited Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Pearl and features the prison in a video about her work for which she wasÃÂ ...
Jackson Clarion Ledger
March 16, 2018
A psychiatrist testified Thursday in a trial about prison conditions that solitary confinement at a Mississippi prison is "shockingly harsh and inhumane," saying long stays in solitary cause serious damage to the mentally ill inmates held there. Dr. Terry Kupers testified that East Mississippi Correctional FacilityÃÂ ...
Jackson Clarion Ledger
March 10, 2018
JACKSON — Three inmates testified in federal court Friday that a Mississippi state prison has unsanitary conditions, is inadequately staffed and provides insufficient health care. In its federal suit against the state of Mississippi, the American Civil Liberties Union and Southern Poverty Law Center argue thatÃÂ ...
Jackson Clarion Ledger
March 5, 2018
JACKSON — Lawyers for inmates argued Monday that conditions at a Mississippi prison are unconstitutionally abusive, while the state's lawyers said ... Both sides made opening arguments Monday in what could be a six-week trial examining conditions at the privately run East Mississippi CorrectionalÃÂ ...
Mississippi Today
March 5, 2018
Jody Owens, managing attorney for the Mississippi Southern Poverty Law Center, said the conditions that existed in the prison when his organization first filed the lawsuit, with the American Civil Liberties Union and private law firms, persist today. “Prisons are large facilities and, particularly, private prisonsÃÂ ...
Jackson Clarion Ledger
March 2, 2018
Attorney General Jeff Sessions signed a memo reversing an Obama-era order that sought to limit the use of private prisons. ... A trial is slated to begin Monday in U.S. District Court in a class-action lawsuit filed by inmates at the East Mississippi prison, alleging violence, dysfunctional mental health careÃÂ ...
Jackson Free Press
December 31, 1999
#Beasley used to clean out cells at the prison in Lauderdale County. On the stand, he described life "in the zone" at one of Mississippi's three private prisons in federal court. He testified that he misses his morning insulin treatment "a lot" whenever the officer in the tower does not let him out of his cell to goÃÂ ...
WDSU New Orleans
December 31, 1999
Former Mississippi officer gets 5 years in federal prison for marijuana charge ... was arrested in 2015 after his grandfather, Elijah Moore, admitted at a traffic stop near Vicksburg to carrying eight duffel bags of marijuana from Texas to Mississippi. ... He was sentenced in 2017 to eight years in federal prison.
WTOK
December 31, 1999
(WTOK) - A Jefferson Davis County man who recently got out of prison on a child exploitation sentence is headed back for another 40 years on more of the same charges. Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood says Christopher Morgan, 27, of Bassfield, was sentenced on three counts of child exploitation,ÃÂ ...
Insurance Journal
February 26, 2018
A former Mississippi insurance agent will serve 10 years in prison for embezzling $117,863.74 from a customer and converting the money for his own use, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood announced last month. Charles Myrick Winstead, 54, an insurance agent from Terry, pleaded guilty Jan.
Jackson Clarion Ledger
February 26, 2018
Within two years, Mississippi's prison population dropped by 5 percent while crime rates continued to decline. The success rate for people ... Andy Gipson, R- Braxton, reins in debtor's prisons through the use of reasonable payment plans for civil infractions like traffic tickets. Why not allow people to keepÃÂ ...
U.S. News & World Report
February 25, 2018
(AP) — Roscoe Barnes III didn't know much about Wilkinson County when he moved there in 2013 to take a job as a prison chaplain. But he knew about Anne Moody, who grew up there, became a civil rights activist and published her memoir, "Coming of Age in Mississippi," which received worldwideÃÂ ...
Mississippi News Now
February 24, 2018
The Alabama case was transferred to the Southern District of Mississippi. On July 21, 2017, Abram was sentenced to 36 months in prison for revocation of supervised release on a 2005 federal drug conviction. On November 14, 2017, he entered guilty pleas to possession of ammunition and possession ofÃÂ ...
Jackson Clarion Ledger
February 20, 2018
The number of gang members in the state's prison system released in a public records request by two Mississippi senators is half that published in the Mississippi Office of Homeland Security's gang threat assessment, according to the state Public Defender's Office. The discrepancy adds fuel to the debateÃÂ ...
U.S. News & World Report
February 9, 2018
Treasurer Candidate Wants Private Prison Spending Study. Feb. 22, 2018. A candidate for state treasurer says the treasurer's office should examine the economic impact of private prisons on Ohio taxpayers.
Radar Online
February 5, 2018
The imprisoned Klansman who arranged the infamous murder of three civil rights workers in 1964 Mississippi charged he was abused behind bars by African-American prison guards, RadarOnline.com has exclusively learned. The allegations are detailed in handwritten letters obtained by Radar fromÃÂ ...
Mississippi News Now
January 31, 2018
Travis Madden, 41, of Gulfport, Mississippi, was sentenced Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Sul Ozerden to serve 48 months in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release for possession with intent to distribute cocaine. As part of an ongoing criminal investigation, a search warrant wasÃÂ ...
STL.News
January 31, 2018
JACKSON, MS (STL.News) Charles Myrick Winstead—an insurance agent from Terry—will serve 10 years in prison for embezzling $117,863.74 from a customer and converting the money for his own use, announced Attorney General Jim Hood. Winstead, 54, pleaded guilty Monday to one count ofÃÂ ...
Jackson Clarion Ledger
January 31, 2018
Federal and state governments — including Mississippi — spend billions every year with private enterprise, increasingly handing off jobs traditionally done by government. “Contracting ... Today, if a lawmaker is being told prison food is bad, the lawmaker can shift the blame to Aramark, the food contractor.
PBS NewsHour
January 30, 2018
Located about 100 miles south of Memphis in the Mississippi River Delta, the birthplace of the blues, Mississippi State Prison in Parchman, Mississippi, has become as much ... In the Reconstructionist south, states' coffers were empty, prisons destroyed, and their former free labor supply was emancipated.
The Commercial Dispatch
January 28, 2018
Law enforcement officials say a recent report indicating that police have found gangs in all 82 of Mississippi's counties shows the need for the measure. The report found that three gangs -- the Gangster Disciples, Vice Lords and Simon City Royals -- have a statewide presence. The Mississippi DepartmentÃÂ ...
Jackson Clarion Ledger
January 27, 2018
A Mississippi man who spent 16 years in prison for crimes he didn't commit has died after an extended illness, a decade after being released. Levon Brooks died Wednesday at his home in Columbus, Mississippi. He was 58. His widow, Dinah Brooks, said he was diagnosed with colon cancer five years agoÃÂ ...
The Sun Herald
January 26, 2018
A Biloxi man faces up to 40 years in prison for his part in an extensive drug trafficking network that spread cocaine from Mississippi to Texas and California. Donte Ladon “Tate” Evans, 43, admitted his role in a conspiracy to distribute cocaine. He pleaded guilty Wednesday in Jackson. The charge accusedÃÂ ...
U.S. News & World Report
January 26, 2018
Attorneys for the Innocence Project, based in New York, began looking into Brooks' case as they were challenging the conviction of Kennedy Brewer in a similar killing of another young girl in the same small community in Noxubee County, Mississippi. Because Brewer was on death row, he was entitled toÃÂ ...
U.S. News & World Report
January 26, 2018
An earlier version of the bill had also sought to force people convicted of gang-related misdemeanors to serve an additional five years in prison, but House Judiciary B Committee Chairman Andy Gipson said Friday that he's dropping that proposal. The Braxton Republican said he hopes prosecutors will beÃÂ ...
Jackson Clarion Ledger
January 21, 2018
A private company is not meeting all the obligations under a food service contract with Mississippi prisons. That is the finding of a legislative watchdog group that looked at the work provided by Aramark. Since in July 2016, the company has done food preparation and delivery for 22 prisons and regionalÃÂ ...
New York Times
January 21, 2018
Ms. Trethewey's celebrated 2006 book is itself a kind of literary monument to her experience growing up in Mississippi as a biracial child, to her African-American mother, and to the Louisiana Native Guards, the black Union soldiers who fought on the Mississippi coast and guarded a prison camp forÃÂ ...
U.S. News & World Report
January 21, 2018
Watchdog Group Finds Errors With Work on Prison Food Service. A private company is not meeting all the obligations under a food service contract with Mississippi prisons. Jan. 21, 2018 ... Since in July 2016, the company has done food preparation and delivery for 22 prisons and regional jails in the state.
Northside Sun
January 20, 2018
Central Mississippi Prison in Pearl is the one we get the most requests from, but the county jail, nobody there had picked up on it. I think the turnover might be different. A lot of the folks just probably don't have the resources that people in the prisons have who are there longer, it's smaller, things like that.
Yellowhammer News
January 18, 2018
The chairman of the Alabama Legislature's joint oversight committee on prisons says lawmakers must “have transparent oversight” of a health-care provider picked to service the state's prisons that is embroiled in legal turmoil in Mississippi. The Alabama Department of Corrections recently selected WexfordÃÂ ...
Memphis Daily News
January 14, 2018
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – Edgar Ray Killen, a 1960s Ku Klux Klan leader who was convicted decades later in the "Mississippi Burning" slayings of three civil rights workers, has died in prison at the age of 92, the state's corrections department announced Friday. Killen was serving three consecutive 20-yearÃÂ ...
The Boston Globe
January 14, 2018
JACKSON, Miss. — Edgar Ray Killen, a 1960s Ku Klux Klan leader who was convicted decades later in the ''Mississippi Burning'' slayings of three civil rights workers, died in prison Thursday at the age of 92, the state's corrections department announced Friday. Mr. Killen was serving three consecutiveÃÂ ...
Jackson Clarion Ledger
January 13, 2018
Just four years after reforms aimed at reducing the number of Mississippians behind bars, the state's prison population is marching upward. And most of the thousands filling Mississippi prisons are the result of revocations of those on probation or parole. More than 80 percent of those revocations have beenÃÂ ...
CNN
January 12, 2018
In 1967, prosecutors convicted eight defendants for violating the federal criminal civil rights conspiracy statute, namely the victims' right to live. None served more than six years in prison. At the time, no federal murder statutes existed, and the state of Mississippi never brought charges. That year in a federalÃÂ ...
CNN
January 12, 2018
In 1967, prosecutors convicted eight defendants for violating the federal criminal civil rights conspiracy statute, namely the victims' right to live. None served more than six years in prison. At the time, no federal murder statutes existed, and the state of Mississippi never brought charges. That year in a federalÃÂ ...
U.S. News & World Report
January 5, 2018
MERIDIAN, Miss. (AP) — Officials are investigating the death of an inmate at East Mississippi Correctional Facility. Lauderdale County Chief Deputy Ward Calhoun tells local media that 54-year-old Oscar Glasper was found unresponsive in his cell around 10 p.m. Wednesday. Glasper was taken from theÃÂ ...
AL.com
January 5, 2018
Wexford was chosen in December over several other companies, even though Alabama prison folks knew it was tied to a Mississippi corruption scandal ... through a middle man, to former Mississippi prisons chief Christopher Epps. Epps in turn directed state contracts worth $290 million to the companies,ÃÂ ...
Mental Floss
January 3, 2018
Historians don't know how Shoonmaker became inspired to start the first prison newspaper west of the Mississippi, and the nation's only paper to be produced by ... modern prison journalism's true roots can be traced back to the late 19th century, an era in which corrections officials "believed earnestly that prisons wereÃÂ ...
Jackson Clarion Ledger
January 1, 2018
More: Guard shortage closes part of south Mississippi prison ... 1, MDOC had 1,175 correctional officers for Community Corrections, which includes the community work centers and the three state prisons — Central Mississippi Correctional Facility, Mississippi State Penitentiary and South MississippiÃÂ ...
WLOX
December 30, 2017
Under "Operation Zero Tolerance," 2017 became the Year of the Shakedown for Mississippi prisons. ... The last shakedown of the year happened Thursday at Parchman's Unit 29, the prison's largest unit with 1,418 inmates, including those on death row and with behavioral problems. Staff from all threeÃÂ ...
Jackson Clarion Ledger
December 25, 2017
Mississippi corrections officials say a shakedown in three units of the state prison resulted in the seizure of rat poison, liquor in plastic water bottles, cigarette lighters and other contraband. A news release from the Department of Corrections says the discoveries were made in a pre-release program unit,ÃÂ ...
U.S. News & World Report
December 23, 2017
Mississippi corrections officials say a shakedown in three units of the state prison resulted in the seizure of rat poison, liquor in plastic water bottles, ... It appears the contraband is coming in through prison staffers, visitors and inmates on work details, Commissioner Pelicia E. Hall said in Friday's statement.
WTVA
December 22, 2017
PARCHMAN, Miss. (WTVA) -- The Mississippi Department of Corrections says it found contraband during a search of three units at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman. Prison leaders say they conducted a shakedown Thursday morning at Unit 25, which is for inmates in the pre-release program;ÃÂ ...
U.S. News & World Report
December 15, 2017
A company selected to provide health care for Alabama's prisons is being sued by the state of Mississippi for its alleged role in a bribery scheme. ... sued by the state of Mississippi in February for allegedly using consultants to pay bribes and kickbacks to then-Mississippi prison commissioner Chris Epps,ÃÂ ...
Mississippi News Now
December 15, 2017
Reddix began paying bribes and kickbacks to Epps in 2012 to obtain contracts for Health Assurance to provide inmate health care services at East Mississippi Correctional Facility and Marshall County Correctional Facility. In 2013, Health Assurance obtained an additional contract to provide inmate healthÃÂ ...
U.S. News & World Report
December 15, 2017
Sweet Secret: Contraband Found in Prison Includes Pecan Pie. A shakedown in a Mississippi prison work camp produced a sweet bit of contraband _ a pecan pie. Dec. 15, 2017, at 4:12 p.m.. Sweet Secret: Contraband Found in Prison Includes Pecan PieÃÂ ...
Montgomery Advertiser
December 15, 2017
A grand jury indicted McCrory and former Mississippi Corerections Commissioner Chris Epps in 2014, on charges that Epps received bribes and kickbacks to steer prison contracts to McCrory. Epps pleaded guilty and was sentenced to nearly 20 years in prison in May. McCrory was sentenced earlier thisÃÂ ...
U.S. News & World Report
December 15, 2017
Robert Simmons was sentenced to more than seven months in prison after pleading guilty to passing bribes from Health Assurance to a Mississippi Gulf Coast official in exchange for a jail medical contract. Former Harrison County Supervisor William Martin killed himself in 2015, hours before he was due inÃÂ ...
WAPT Jackson
December 14, 2017
More contraband than was expected turned up during a recent shakedown at a Parchman work camp, state prison officials said. ... cords, shanks and even a pecan pie were recovered during the three-hour search Wednesday, Mississippi Department of Corrections officials said Monday in a news release.
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