Mississippi Prisons Face Federal Investigation After Wave of Inmate Deaths

Between December 2019 and February 2020, at least 29 people died in Mississippi state prisons — 13 of them in the first three weeks of 2020 alone. Most were in facilities with Black majority populations. Mississippi Delta Correctional Facility, Parchman Farm (Mississippi State Penitentiary), and South Mississippi Correctional Institution were sites of extreme violence enabled by severe understaffing and gang activity. The DOJ opened a civil rights investigation in April 2020. Parchman Farm has a history rooted in convict leasing and was designed to exploit Black prisoners for labor after the Civil War. A federal consent agreement was reached in 2022 requiring reforms.