Confronting Horrid Injustice in Mississippi Prisons
Conditions at Parchman, a notoriously violent Mississippi prison, have left inmates struggling to survive (Source)
Last Wednesday, UNC students crowded into the Genome Sciences Building’s largest classroom, anxiously awaiting speeches from POLI 203 guest speakers Gary Griffin and his lawyer, Ken Rose. This class on the history of the death penalty hosts exonerees who have experienced unthinkable injustices on death row. Like many of the other speakers, Griffin was wrongfully convicted of a capital crime and suffered through a lengthy incarceration prior to the overturn of his death sentence. In addition to telling his own story, Griffin shed light on recent violence in Mississippi’s state prisons.
Formerly incarcerated at Parchman Farm in Sunflower County, Mississippi, Griffin did not shy away from fully describing the gross mismanagement of the state’s prison system. His talk sent chills through the audience as he drew attention to Parchman’s inhumane and unsanitary conditions, emphasizing how the problem has only worsened over time. Griffin claimed that inmates at Parchman continue to suffer, as the prison remains understaffed and controlled by gangs.
In the past three months, a spike in inmate deaths due to violent outbreaks in Mississippi’s penitentiaries have turned prisons like Parchman into war zones. From Dec. 29 to Feb. 16, ten inmates in the Mississippi system have died as a result of altercations between prisoners or of apparent suicides. As violence continued to escalate, all of the state’s prisons were placed on lockdown until early January. Videos captured by prisoners on contraband cell phones show stabbings, riots and fires within the facilities, the public’s only window into the chaos that has taken place. Activists fear that the death toll will continue to rise without much needed reform.
As the current crisis persists, Mississippi must also reckon with more than a century of abuse in its state prisons. The Mississippi State Prison at Parchman, built in 1901, carries a particularly painful history of racial injustice. The prison was originally built to resemble a plantation, with inmates working on the large farms surrounding the complex. The Parchman Farm was racially segregated throughout the Jim Crow Era, and black inmates were forced to pick cotton. The 1987 BBC documentary Fourteen Days in May shows prisoners packed into trucks and taken to work the fields in the sweltering heat, still suffering under the plantation system well into the twentieth century. The prisons served as loopholes in the American South, perpetuating systems of slavery long after the conclusion of the Civil War.
These issues have captured the attention of popular rap artists Jay-Z and Yo Gotti, who recently spearheaded reform efforts by filing a lawsuit against the Mississippi Department of Corrections. Jay-Z’s lawyer Alex Spiro is taking an aggressive approach, warning MDOC that he plans to use every potential legal resource on behalf of Walter Gates, Roosevelt Holliman, and Denorris Howell, three of the recently slain inmates.
At the end of his talk on Wednesday, Gary Griffin expressed hope that future reform efforts would not require the influence of popular celebrities. He believes that the public should use their outrage to fuel grassroots reform movements and hold officials accountable for their actions.
Growing interest in modeling prisons after highly successful Norwegian institutions may help quell the rampant violence and improve conditions in U.S. correctional facilities. However, these reforms occur primarily in northern states, and Mississippi must address its small and inefficient corrections budget before reform can take place. For inmates who died in the riots, any attempt at reform is much too little, too late. Despite this injustice, the effort must continue for those who remain imprisoned, giving them a chance to serve their sentences in fair conditions and reintegrate themselves into society.