updated Fri. February 23, 2024
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New Jersey Herald
April 25, 2018
The census also revealed that Mississippi had the second-highest number of local jail inmates per capita, behind Louisiana. Cliff Johnson ... The state plans to expand the number of beds for prisoners, and lawmakers allotted $1 million to explore a permanent expansion of treatment facilities. For SandersÃâà...
Daily Mississippian
April 25, 2018
BRANDON — Jerry Sanders has been sitting in a jail cell on a relatively minor charge of methamphetamine possession for more than a year — longer than the sentence he could get if he's convicted. And with no money to post bail or hire his own lawyer, he may be sitting there for weeks or months more.
NOLA.com
April 24, 2018
If prisoners serving life sentences without parole in Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee were added together, the sum would still be less than the number of people serving life in Louisiana, according to a report from The Sentencing Project. About 40 percent of Louisiana's incarceratedÃâà...
ACLU (blog)
April 23, 2018
In addition to presenting evidence on the dark and dirty living conditions at the facility, prisoner and expert witnesses described smoky and dangerous ... Management & Training Corporation runs the prison, while Centurion of Mississippi provides health care and mental health care to facility prisoners.
Natchez Democrat
April 17, 2018
It's the latest violence in a system where 12 inmates were killed by other prisoners last year and 250 prisoners were assaulted so severely in 2016 and ... At the Bishopville prison where the seven were killed, one inmate held a guard hostage for 90 minutes in March and another killed a fellow prisoner inÃâà...
Casper Star-Tribune Online
April 14, 2018
Housing the inmates in Mississippi will come at a significantly reduced cost compared to housing them in Wyoming, Horan said. Keeping a prisoner in Wyoming State Penitentiary costs about $131 dollars a day, Horan said. The corrections department will spend $70.42 per day for the prisoners held inÃâà...
Tuscaloosa News
April 14, 2018
A man who escaped a Mississippi prison earlier this week was captured in Tuscaloosa Friday morning after holding two people at knifepoint in their home while running from police. Kevin G. Rush, 37, walked away from the Noxubee County Community Work Center in Mississippi on Wednesday.
Tuscaloosa News
April 13, 2018
Police said a man who escaped from a Mississippi prison earlier this week was captured in Tuscaloosa Friday morning after holding two people at knifepoint in their home while running from police. Kevin G. Rush, 37, walked away from the Noxubee County Community Work Center in Mississippi onÃâà...
Southern Poverty Law Center
April 9, 2018
“The Mississippi Department of Corrections allows this prison to fail at even the most fundamental tasks: keeping prisoners safe and secure, treating mental illnesses, providing basic medical treatment, and providing a sanitary environment,” said Jody Owens, the SPLC's managing attorney for Mississippi.
Boing Boing
April 6, 2018
The Mississippi prison system is a model of red state austerity, where the for-profit contractors like Management & Training receive just $9500/year ($26/day) per prisoner -- compared with $73,000/year per prisoner spent in New York. To turn a profit under those conditions, Management & Training badlyÃâà...
Mother Jones
April 4, 2018
Five years ago, prisoners there sued the Mississippi Department of Corrections, claiming that its top officials had failed to keep tabs on the prison's corporate operators and allowed dangerous conditions to go unaddressed. The prisoners' class-action lawsuit describes a crumbling facility with broken locksÃâà...
WTOK
April 3, 2018
(AP) - The warden of a Mississippi prison accused of being unconstitutionally cruel says conditions there aren't unique to his lockup. Warden Frank Shaw of Eastern ... Prisoners also are complaining about what they call inadequate health care and unsanitary conditions. The state denies the prison'sÃâà...
WBRZ
April 3, 2018
Warden Frank Shaw of Eastern Mississippi Correctional Facility took the stand Monday as the first defense witness in a federal trial over conditions at the prison. Shaw oversees the ... Prisoners also are complaining about what they call inadequate health care and unsanitary conditions. The state denies theÃâà...
NOLA.com
April 3, 2018
Louisiana House passes bill to expand use of state prisoner labor ... House Bill 84 would allow the governor to authorize prisoners to do work other than custodial duties at the Department of Corrections' headquarters in Baton ... Mississippi once had state inmates working at its governor's mansion, but Gov.
NOLA.com
April 3, 2018
It would also require families of nursing home residents to be notified if a furloughed prisoner convicted of murder was moved into that facility. ... If prisoners serving life sentences without parole in Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee were added together, the sum would still be less thanÃâà...
New York Times
April 3, 2018
The genesis of the problems at East Mississippi, according to prisoner advocates, is that the state requires private prisons to operate at 10 percent lower cost than state-run facilities. Even at its state-run institutions, Mississippi spends significantly less on prisoners than most states, a fact that state officialsÃâà...
Jackson Clarion Ledger
March 22, 2018
The American Civil Liberties Union and Southern Poverty Law Center are arguing that the state has been aware of dangerous conditions at the East Mississippi prison. Defense attorneys, however, say the conditions are acceptable, and that some prisoners' harm is self-inflicted. Located near Meridian, theÃâà...
Daily Mississippian
March 20, 2018
Unfortunately, Mississippi prisons are degrading by national standards. Correctional officers have a hard time managing prisoners with the nation's lowest working pay, less than $27,000 per year. And the state's maximum security prisons, such as Parchman Farm, have reached full capacity and keep fillingÃâà...
Meridian Star
March 15, 2018
JACKSON — A psychiatrist called as a witness against the East Mississippi Correctional Facility testified Thursday that solitary confinement had severe and lasting psychological effects on all prisoners but especially those with mental illness. “My opinion, urgently, is to remove all prisoners with seriousÃâà...
Jackson Free Press
March 14, 2018
Prisoners in the East Mississippi Correctional Facility (pictured) started testifying against the Mississippi Department of Corrections last week. Photo courtesy Mississippi ... 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 hisÃâà...
Northside Sun
March 13, 2018
At the federal courthouse in Jackson, East Mississippi Correctional Facility is defending itself against a lawsuit claiming atrocious conditions for its inmates. ... As part of the evidence reviewed by Judge William Barbour, a captain at the prison said in a deposition that prisoner-on-prisoner violence wasÃâà...
U.S. News & World Report
March 11, 2018
Concluding the first week of a federal trial, three inmates testified on the conditions within East Mississippi Correctional Facility. ... Beasley, who works as a porter in the prison, said a common way for prisoners to try to get officers' attention was to start a fire within their cell, or cut themselves and stick theirÃâà...
Shepherd Express
March 6, 2018
We currently have 23,000 prisoners in a system designed for 17,000, and we are rapidly filling the beds of our county jails with the overflow. ... Texas, Michigan, Mississippi and other traditionally conservative “red states” have begun closing prisons and reinvesting in less costly treatment alternatives andÃâà...
Jackson Clarion Ledger
March 6, 2018
In anticipation of Clergy for Prison Reform's third policy summit, we take note of the strides Mississippi has taken to improve the criminal justice system. Over the last .... Scripture is clear; even the prisoner has value in the eyes of Jesus, who he counts among the least of these among us. RehabilitatingÃâà...
Meridian Star
March 6, 2018
Johnson described doors that didn't lock, prisoners who waited days before receiving medical treatment and occurence of contraband in the facility. ... Both the defense and the plaintiffs said that more than 80 percent of inmates at East Mississippi Correctional Facility have some form of a mental healthÃâà...
SF Bay Area Indymedia
March 6, 2018
Hall, et al., a class action lawsuit brought on behalf of prisoners at East Mississippi Correctional Facility (EMCF) in Meridian, Mississippi. The American Civil ... In January 2016, a prisoner's cellmate found him passed out on the floor, unresponsive, having defecated and urinated on himself. The cellmateÃâà...
Mississippi Today
March 5, 2018
Hall about conditions at East Mississippi Correctional Facility. The 1,500-bed facility in Meridian is designated to house the most severely mentally ill prisoners in the state; approximately 80 percent of the prisoners there have been diagnosed with a mental illness. The lawsuit was filed in May 2013 after aÃâà...
ACLU (blog)
March 5, 2018
The lackadaisical and unconstitutional approach that EMCF staff takes toward prisoner healthcare cost T.H. his life and has caused well-documented suffering among countless other mentally ill prisoners. And it all happens in the context of a prison rife with violence, where security staff often react withÃâà...
Texarkana Gazette
March 3, 2018
Angola, with its 18,000-acre footprint in the Lower Mississippi Delta, houses men who have committed the most violent of crimes. Most of the more than ... When Cain opened the prison gates to preachers like Franklin Graham, the change among prisoners was evident, says Young. "Moral rehabilitation," heÃâà...
WJTV
March 3, 2018
North Korean defectors have charged that such chemicals have been used against prisoners and disabled people inside the authoritarian nation. North Korea is believed to have provided chemical defensive equipment and technology to Syria and Libya in the past, and an upcoming report by a UnitedÃâà...
CNN
March 3, 2018
The sprawling prison is the size of Manhattan and surrounded on three sides by the Mississippi River. Franklin Graham ... Franklin Graham returned to Angola in 2008 for the dedication of a chapel constructed by prisoners and funded with private donations, according to the association. Angola, once one ofÃâà...
Jackson Clarion Ledger
March 3, 2018
Inmates are still living in barbaric and horrific conditions and their basic human rights are violated daily, said Jody Owens of the Southern Poverty Law Center Mississippi office. On Friday, the attorneys conducted a phone press briefing about the trial in the 5-year-old prisoners' lawsuit, which is scheduled toÃâà...
Montgomery Advertiser
March 2, 2018
Wexford paid consulting fees to Cecil McCrory, a former Mississippi state legislator who pleaded guilty to bribing former Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps ... Those options include receivership, which could force the state to increase prison spending, release prisoners or both.
AL.com
March 2, 2018
The chairman of the Alabama Legislature's Contract Review Committee this morning delayed the Department of Corrections' plans to sign a contract with a company to provide health care and mental health care to state prisoners. The state of Mississippi has sued the company, Wexford Health Sources Inc.,Ãâà...
Arizona Capitol Times
February 28, 2018
These are the living conditions that prisoners with acute mental illness endure in the Maricopa County Jail's Special Management Unit (SMU) in downtown Phoenix. In my 23 years of visiting ... Illinois, Colorado, and Mississippi closed entire supermax prisons and saved millions. Maricopa has refused toÃâà...
Jackson Clarion Ledger
February 26, 2018
A federal judge is again calling officials from a Mississippi county before him to ask why inmates are languishing in the county jail without bail or trial. The Monday hearing before ... Reeves is considering a number of petitions from Lauderdale County prisoners complaining about their detentions. Bittick saidÃâà...
Arkansas Online
February 23, 2018
The split majority of the high court also said the judge had erred in interpreting a "municipal prisoner" as one who only violated a municipal ordinance. The dispute arose from a debt the county said it was owed by the city for feeding and housing prisoners in 2013. When Mississippi County filed suit in 2014,Ãâà...
Jackson Clarion Ledger
February 21, 2018
Smith said his office is supposed to get a chance to object to the release of jailed prisoners, but said it wasn't notified that Circuit Judge William Skinner intended to release Coats. Smith asked Green, the senior circuit judge, to hold a hearing to re-jail Coats after reporters asked him about the man's release.
WTVA
February 17, 2018
As marshal, McKittrick is responsible for protecting federal judges, catching fugitives, housing and transporting prisoners, managing seized assets and protecting witnesses. McKittrick has been chief U.S. probation officer for the Northern District of Mississippi since 2007. He joined the U.S. Probation ServiceÃâà...
NOLA.com
December 31, 1999
The expense of housing sick prisoners was a key selling point for its proponents. ... One prisoner alone cost $950,000 to treat that year. ... If prisoners serving life sentences without parole in Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee were added together, the sum would still be less than theÃâà...
Charlotte Observer
December 31, 1999
Angola, with its 18,000-acre footprint in the Lower Mississippi Delta, houses men who have committed the most violent of crimes. Most of the ... Young said Cain believed that prisoners who died at Angola had paid their debt to society and deserved a dignified funeral service and proper burial. Cain startedÃâà...
Buckrail
December 31, 1999
WYOMING – The Wyoming Department of Corrections (DOC) transferred 88 inmates from the state penitentiary to a private prison in Tutwiler, Mississippi. The move was made in response to overcrowding in Wyoming detention facilities. Prisoners moved were all serving lengthy or life sentences with little toÃâà...
U.S. News & World Report
December 31, 1999
Reeves is considering a number of petitions from Lauderdale County prisoners complaining about their detentions. Bittick said authorities believe Lewis and other inmates are "trying to have it both ways," complaining about slow trials in federal court but doing nothing in the state court system to speed upÃâà...
