FILE - In this July 21, 2010, photo, employees leave the front gate of the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman, Miss. An inmate at the Mississippi prison that was a focus of recent deadly unrest was found hanging in his cell by two corrections officers over the weekend and pronounced dead, a coroner said Sunday, Jan. 19, 2020. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)
- Sen. Juan Barnett, the committee’s chairman, said the prison is unsafe for staff and inmates after years of underfunding and neglect.
Shuttering the state’s largest and most notorious prison is high on the Senate Corrections Committee chairman’s agenda yet again this legislative session. The chairman believes the Mississippi State Penitentiary, better known as Parchman, is a drain on Mississippi’s coffers and unsafe for its staff and prisoners.
“The state is putting too much taxpayer money into [Parchman],” said State Senator Juan Barnett (D). ”We’re putting too much good money into something that we’ll never be able to fix.”
In the Fiscal Year 2025 budget, the state appropriated more than $40.4 million, up from $37 million in FY 2024, to run the 124-year-old prison. The Mississippi Department of Corrections has requested more than $42.5 million for the coming FY 2026 budget.
Senator Barnett said the prison is unsafe for staff and inmates after years of underfunding and neglect.
Two years ago, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a 60-page report calling the prison’s living conditions “severe and systematic,” noting that Parchman has suffered from poor maintenance and a lack of guards, among other issues. However, the Mississippi Department of Corrections said late last year that the prison conditions across the state are improving.
Parchman became famous during the Civil Rights era when young protesters were sentenced to the facility. A few years ago, inmates staged an uprising to protest their living conditions.
Senator Barnett’s bill would close about 75 percent of Parchman, keeping the infirmary, rehabilitative services and death row. Most of the inmates would be reassigned to the nearby Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility, currently operated by Brentwood, Tennesse-based CivicCore.
Barnett’s legislation, which could be reintroduced as soon as this week, is similar to what he proposed during the 2024 session in SB 2353. Under that bill, the phased-down closure was estimated to cost nearly $150 million over four years. However, the bill died in committee after it was double referred.
Tallahatchie’s correctional facility is “a newer facility,” the Corrections Chairman said.
“You also got to look at the safety of the workers.” Barnett added. “Plus, we want to keep these jobs in the Delta.”
Barnett said the Mississippi Legislature must act soon to avoid a similar fate of neighboring Alabama, which is slated to spend approximately $1 billion on a new prison after the U.S. Department of Justice found constitutional violations in its facilities.
Other Corrections-related Legislation
Senator Barnett told Magnolia Tribune that he also plans to introduce a measure to restore the voting rights of formerly incarcerated people.
“This bill will not include people who committed violent crimes; it will be for non-violent offenders who met certain requirements,” he said.
Barnett went on to say that those requirements would include paying all fines and restitution and not having been charged with a new offense in the past seven years. He added that the bill would be a state constitutional amendment.
The Senate Corrections Committee will also consider a presumptive parole bill. Barnett described the soon-to-be-introduced bill as a way to clarify any ambiguous language concerning parole while guaranteeing inmates the right to a parole hearing.
“Basically, inmates are being released without a formal parole hearing,” he said. “This will fix the language, so it’s more clear.”
Daniel Tyson
