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Multiple Mississippi prisons controlled by gangs and violence, DOJ report says
Three Mississippi prisons that house about 7,200 people are controlled by gangs and rife with violence, violating the constitutional rights of people incarcerated at all three facilities, a scathing Department of Justice report said.
The report found violence, gang control and trafficking of contraband had been happening inside the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility, South Mississippi Correctional Institution, and Wilkinson County Correctional Facility for years. Investigators concluded that the Mississippi Department of Corrections failed to protect inmates from physical violence and adequately supervise incarcerated inmates. Instead, corrections increased the use of solitary confinement which increased harm for the inmates, the report released Wednesday found.
“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.
CBS News has reached out to the Mississippi Department of Corrections for comment.
The prisons are egregiously understaffed and as a result “gangs dominate much of prison life, and contraband and violence, including sexual violence, proliferate.” Central Mississippi’s Chief CID investigator estimated that “between 20% and 40% of the population at Central Mississippi have a gang affiliation.”
Even though the Mississippi Department of Corrections knows there is widespread violence within these facilities they do not “take reasonable measures to prevent well-known, widespread violence at Central Mississippi, South Mississippi, and Wilkinson,” the report said.
Assaults and violence happen frequently at the facilities with the Central Mississippi facility reporting an assault every other day over a nearly two-year period. South Mississippi had nearly 100 reported assaults or fights, of which about 40 resulted in outside hospitalization, from June 2020 through June 2022, the report said. And in Wilkinson prison, most of the inmates spend 23 hours a day locked in their cells 23 hours a day due to ongoing violence.
The report documented many incidents of unchecked violence. One incident included reports of 34 inmates at Central Mississippi having a gang altercation “with make-shift weapons that included broomsticks, crutches, shanks, and a microwave.”
Others included inmates punching a victim in the face repeatedly, beating with mop and broom handles, stabbings with shanks, and other homemade weapons. The report also included various incidents of sexual violence – with most of the violence occurring without security or correctional guards intervening.
Staff at Central Mississippi told investigators that gangs were a “government within the facility,” with one coordinator saying gangs have complete control of the prison dormitories.
There is also a huge influx of trafficked contraband, such as drugs and cell phones, into the prison system. One supervisor at Wilkinson reported that in a single month in 2022, they recovered “28 grams of crystal meth, 8–9 ounces of marijuana, and 10 cell phones.”
The Department of Justice launched its investigation into four Mississippi prisons in 2020 after reports about correction conditions in the state. Findings on conditions at the Mississippi State Penitentiary, known as Parchman, were released in April 2022.
The Department of Justice said in a statement now that the investigations into the prisons are complete the next goal “is to work with Mississippi to resolve the identified constitutional violations and implement change.”
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MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota Vikings rookie Khyree Jackson died overnight in a car accident.
The Upper Marlboro, Maryland native played for Alabama and Oregon. He was drafted by the Vikings in April in round 4 as the 108th overall pick.
He was 24 years old.
“Our thoughts are with Khyree’s family, friends, teammates and coaches, as well as all the victims of this tragic accident,” the Vikings wrote on X.
Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell said he was “crushed” by the news of Jackson’s death.
“In our short time together, it was evident Khyree was going to develop into a tremendous professional football player, but what was more impressive was his desire to become the best person he could be for his family and those around him,” O’Connell added.
The crash happened in Upper Marlboro shortly after 3 a.m. and involved three cars, according to Maryland state police. Investigators believe the driver of a silver Infiniti car tried to change lanes at a high rate of speed and struck the car that Jackson was in, as well as a Chevrolet Impala.
The two other occupants of Jackson’s car also died in the crash. The occupants of the other cars were not hurt.
Officials believe that alcohol could have been a contributing factor in the crash.
In a statement, the Minnesota Vikings say they have offered support to Jackson’s family, and are offering counseling and emotional support to the players who seek it.
This is a developing story. Check back with WCCO.com for more.
Note: The above video first aired on June 24, 2024.
Alfred Handley leaned back in his wheelchair alongside a major Phoenix freeway as a street medicine team helped him get rehydrated with an intravenous saline solution dripping from a bag hanging on a pole.
Cars whooshed by under the blazing 96-degree morning sun as the 59-year-old homeless man with a nearly toothless smile got the help he needed through a new program run by the nonprofit Circle the City.
“It’s a lot better than going to the hospital,” Handley said of the team that provides health care to homeless people. He’s been treated poorly at traditional clinics and hospitals, he said, more than six years after being struck by a car while he sat on a wall, leaving him in a wheelchair.
Circle the City, a non-profit that works in multiple cities and hospitals and treats about 9,000 people annually, introduced its IV rehydration program as a way to protect homeless people in Phoenix from life-threatening heat illness as temperatures regularly hit the triple-digits in America’s hottest metro.
Matt York / AP
Homeless people accounted for nearly half of the record 645 heat-related deaths last year in Maricopa County, which encompasses metro Phoenix. As summers grow warmer, health providers from San Diego to New York are being challenged to better protect homeless patients.
Dr. Liz Frye, vice chair of the Street Medicine Institute which provides training to hundreds of healthcare teams worldwide, said she didn’t know of groups other than Circle the City administering IVs on the street. The organization also distributes tens of thousands of water bottles each summer and tries to educate people about hot weather dangers.
“But if that’s what needs to happen to keep somebody from dying, I’m all about it,” Frye said.
Bringing care to people in need
The amount of people requiring treatment for heat illnesses is rising. The Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, featured in last year’s book, “Rough Sleepers,” now sees patients with mild heat exhaustion in the summer after decades of treating people with frostbite and hypothermia during the winter, said Dr. Dave Munson, the street team’s medical director.
“It’s certainly something to worry about,” said Munson, noting that temperatures in Boston hit 100 degrees with 70% humidity during June’s heat wave. Homeless people, he said, are vulnerable to very hot and very cold weather not only because they live outside, but they often can’t regulate body temperature due to medication for mental illness or high blood pressure, or because of street substance use.
The Phoenix team searches for patients in homeless encampments in dry riverbeds, sweltering alleys and along the canals that bring water to the Phoenix area. About 15% are dehydrated enough for a saline drip.
Matt York / AP
“We go out every day and find them,” said nurse practitioner Perla Puebla. “We do their wound care, medication refills for diabetes, antibiotics, high blood pressure.”
Puebla’s street team ran across Handley and 36-year-old Phoenix native Phillip Enriquez near an overpass in an area frequented by homeless people because it’s near a facility offering free meals. Across the road was an encampment of tents and lean-tos along a chain-link fence.
Enriquez sat on a patch of dirt as Puebla started a drip for him. She also gave him a prescription for antibiotics and a referral to a dentist for his dental infection.
Living outside in Arizona’s broiling sun is hard, especially for people who may be mentally ill or use sedating drugs like fentanyl that make them less aware of their surroundings. Stimulants like methamphetamine contribute to dehydration, which can be fatal. Dr. Matt Essary, who works with Circle in the City’s mobile clinics, said the organization also often treats surface burns that can happen when a medical emergency or intoxication causes someone to fall on a sizzling sidewalk.
Matt York / AP
Temperatures this year have reached 115 degrees in metro Phoenix, where six heat-related deaths have been confirmed through June 22. Another 111 are under investigation, and the city is seeing an “increasing” number of patients with heat illnesses every year, according to Dr. Aneesh Narang, the assistant medical director of emergency medicine at Banner Medical Center-Phoenix, which treats many homeless people with heat stroke.
Narang’s staff works frequently with Circle the City, whose core mission is providing respite care, with 100 beds for homeless people not well enough to return to the streets after a hospital stay.
Extreme heat worldwide requires a dramatic response, said physician assistant Lindsay Fox, who cares for homeless people in Albuquerque, New Mexico, through an initiative run by the University of New Mexico’s School of Medicine.
Three times weekly, Fox treats infections, cleans wounds and manages chronic conditions in consultation with hospital colleagues. She said the prospect of more heat illness worries her.
Highs in Albuquerque can hit the 90s and don’t fall enough for people living outside to cool off overnight, she said.
“If you’re in an urban area that’s primarily concrete, you’re retaining heat,” she said. “We’re seeing heat exposure that very quickly could go to heat stroke.”
Serious heat stroke is far more common in metro Phoenix, where Circle the City is now among scores of health programs for the homeless in cities like New York, San Diego and Spokane, Washington.
Circle the City works with medical staff in seven Phoenix hospitals to help homeless patients get after-care when they no longer need hospitalization. It also staffs two outpatient clinics for follow-up.
Rachel Belgrade waited outside Circle the City’s retrofitted truck with her black-and-white puppy, Bo, for Essary to write a prescription for the blood pressure medicine she lost when a man stole her bicycle. She accepted two bottles of water to cool off as the morning heat rose.
“They make all of this easier,” said Belgrade, a Native American from the Gila River tribe. “They don’t give you a hard time.”
