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This unaltered story was originally published at ProPublica.org. [1]
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Lawmakers refused to increase an infamous prison's funding. Then, chaos erupted. — Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting
Author Name, ProPublica
2022-04
On average, Parchman records about two inmate suicides per year. In 2019, five Parchman prisoners killed themselves, all in single-person cells, according to the coroner’s office.
Solitary confinement and a failure to check regularly on inmates in one-man cells increases the likelihood of suicide, experts say.
“In many prison systems, a majority of all suicides occur in solitary confinement, even though prisoners in solitary account for only a small proportion of the prison population,” Fathi said.
Seven inmates were killed by fellow detainees in the 13 months from January last year through the present month, according to the coroner. From 2011 to 2018, one prisoner was killed every 19 months on average.
On July 10, Jeffery Allen, 40, was beaten to death in the shower, according to the coroner. Less than a month later, Samuel Wade, 27, was strangled to death. Just before midnight on Nov. 12, Jeremy Irons, 31, was fatally stabbed by other inmates. The death took place after an argument over a $40 debt, according to inmates.
On Nov. 19, Michael Anderson, 26, who was serving a 10-year sentence for armed robbery, was fatally stabbed by other inmates, according to the coroner.
Anderson’s father, Robert Coleman, said his son, before his death, shared that a prison gang “wanted him to do something that he didn’t do” and that he wasn’t under the protection of his “brothers” anymore.
Another three homicides have taken place since the new year began.
One factor in the soaring number of deaths is that prison gangs have become a de facto replacement for the old armed trusties, according to some prison experts.
“We are talking to correctional officers who say that gang leaders are making decisions about who gets housed where,” said Johnson, of the University of Mississippi’s MacArthur Justice Center, whose office represents many prisoners in Parchman. “When people get ‘out of line,’ the severe gang disciplinary system rules the day.”
Travis Arnold, sentenced to five years in prison in 2018 for statutory rape and failing to register as a sex offender, said he and other inmates have long felt unsafe because “there are not enough guards to protect us, and they never come around and check on us.”
Those fears became a reality when a gang war between the Vice Lords and the Gangsters erupted at Parchman and other Mississippi prisons, starting Dec. 29.
In an attempt to stem the violence, Parchman officials last week reopened notorious Unit 32, which had been closed in 2010 under the federal consent decree. Inmates subsequently shot a video there that shows standing water, mold, peeling paint and cells where there is no running water for sinks or toilets.
“This illustrates one of the shortcomings of litigation — sooner or later the lawsuit goes away, and defendants are then free to return to their old ways, unless and until a new lawsuit is filed,” Fathi said.
Video circulating on social media purports to show the Jan. 3 killing of an inmate. ProPublica could not verify the authenticity of the video with prison officials. Though officially banned, cellphones are widely available to inmates. Several inmates contacted said it appeared to show Parchman’s interior, and details in the video match the coroner’s description of the circumstances of the death of one inmate.
In the video, an inmate can be seen standing inside a cell, dressed in the distinctive red-and-white pants worn by the most dangerous prisoners. The inmate repeatedly strikes another man in the cell with his fists. Loud shouting can be heard while an unnamed prisoner narrates the video: “They’re straight up hitting the m-----f---ers with knives and s---, beating them m-----f---ers up. They’re behind the cell while we’re on lockdown.”
A woman’s voice can then be heard, perhaps from a cellphone: “He has his own family.”
An inmate can be heard boasting: “I’ve got him in a chokehold.”
Another inmate cheers him on: “Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. Dead. Oh, yeah. Dead. Deaaaaad.”
Despite the loud shouting throughout the incident, no officer can be seen responding.
Though the identity of the man attacked in the video could not be confirmed, a prison doctor pronounced an inmate named Denorris Howell dead at 3:20 a.m. on Jan 3. Authorities initially thought Howell was stabbed to death by his roommate.
But Sunflower County Coroner Heather Burton later determined that Howell had sustained a fatal neck injury and that the blood stains on his clothing belonged to his roommate, who was also injured in the attack.
No charges have been filed, and MDOC officials have declined to comment.
Howell’s mother, Janice Wilkins of Memphis, Tennessee, said her son had called her on his cellphone and told her that the lights had been turned out. Before hanging up the phone, he said that a guard was letting inmates out of their cells.
“My son won’t be back,” she said. “But I’m crying for other inmates who are incarcerated.”
Johnson called the video “the stuff of dystopian nightmares.”
“We take thousands of people and lock them up in hellholes where they are forced to fight for survival on a daily basis while they unravel due to the effects of mental illness, addiction, disease and constant fear,” Johnson said. “Events like this one are horrific not only because of the depraved behavior of the killers, but also because we as Mississippians have allowed this to happen, even encouraged it.”
“We all have blood on our hands,” he said.
[END]
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