Justice Department finds Parchman prison conditions violated federal law

A two-year federal investigation into the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman Farm found that unsafe state prison conditions — including solitary confinement and lack of mental health treatment — had violated the U.S. Constitution and contributed to deadly violence among inmates.

In 2020, the Department of Justice opened an investigation into Parchman and three other state-owned Mississippi prisons as civil rights advocates called for urgent changes at Mississippi's state prison system. The probes into the three other prisons are ongoing.

Attorney General Kristen Clarke, who oversees the Justice Department's civil rights division, said on Wednesday that 10 inmates were killed by suicide and 12 died at Parchman over the past two years, beginning with a prison riot that started Dec. 31, 2019 and lasted for weeks.

The Justice Department concluded today that there was reasonable cause to believe that conditions and practices at the Mississippi State Penitentiary, also known as Parchman, are in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, according to a statement by the U.S. Justice Department.

The department said a lawsuit could be filed against Mississippi if the state doesn't address concerns raised in the findings revealed on Wednesday.

Mississippi is repeatedly violating the Constitutional Rights of people incarcerated at Parchman by failing to take sufficient suicide prevention measures and failing to protect incarcerated people from violence, the Justice Department said.

The department provided Mississippi with a written notice of the supporting facts for these findings in a 59-sided findings letter, it added.

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said the state recognized the existing challenges and was taking steps to solve them.

He told reporters before the expected release of the DOJ's report that we have made significant strides at Parchman in the last two years.

The state Department of Corrections did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.