By United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division and United States Attorney’s Offices, Northern and Southern Districts of Mississippi Civil Divisions
The Department of Justice has reasonable cause to believe that the State of Mississippi and Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) violate the constitutional rights of people incarcerated at Central Mississippi Correctional Facility (Central Mississippi), South Mississippi Correctional Institution (South Mississippi), and Wilkinson County Correctional Facility (Wilkinson).
MDOC fails to protect incarcerated persons from violence. MDOC does not adequately supervise incarcerated people, control contraband, and investigate incidents of harm and misconduct. These basic safety failures and the poor living conditions inside the facilities promote violence, including sexual assault. Gangs operate in the void left by staff and use violence to control people and traffic contraband.
Restrictive housing practices create a substantial risk of serious harm. MDOC holds hundreds of people at Central Mississippi and Wilkinson in restrictive housing for prolonged periods in appalling conditions. Restrictive housing units are unsanitary, hazardous, and chaotic, with little supervision. They are breeding grounds for suicide, self-inflicted injury, fires, and assaults.
These violations are systemic problems that have been going on for years. In April 2022, we found conditions at another MDOC facility, Mississippi State Penitentiary (Parchman), violated the Constitution. Many of the conditions we identified at Parchman exist at Central Mississippi, South Mississippi, and Wilkinson. Across all these facilities, MDOC does not have enough staff to supervise the population. The mismatch between the size of the incarcerated population and the number of security staff means that gangs dominate much of prison life, and contraband and violence, including sexual violence, proliferate. Prison officials rely on ineffective and overly harsh restrictive housing practices for control. This Report begins by explaining the methodology and scope of our investigation. It then describes the facilities we investigated. Next, the Report identifies the constitutional violations. We grouped the violations into two sections: failure to protect from violence and substantial risk of serious harm from restrictive housing practices. In each section, we highlight particular incidents of violence, gang activity, and misconduct as examples of the type of incidents that give rise to constitutional violations and to show the severity of the harm. We also examine MDOC’s recent steps to address these concerns and why their efforts fall short. We end by outlining the minimum measures needed to remedy the violations.
Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, 2024. 60p.