WATCH: Mississippi State Prisons Exposed for Inhumane Living Conditions

Horrific images and videos from within Mississippi Correctional Institute in Leakesville and the Parchman Prison in Mississippi have surfaced online this weekend and what it shows is absolutely horrifying.

The images and videos first appeared on Twitter from an account called Prison Reform Movement. Both the images and pictures show what inmates have to deal with daily from their daily living conditions, the food served to them, and their sleeping conditions.

A few of the images show inmates having to lay on concrete floors shirtless, to images of inmates laying on a mattress but no frame, shirtless while looking famished. Other images show water leaking everywhere causing black mold.

One inmate was able to record two videos, in April, inside the showers of the Mississippi Correctional Institute and released them to the Prison Reform Movement. The videos show what appears to be black mold and looks like the insides of a prison from a third world country but it is in our very own back doors.

There are also pictures showing mold around a window and door handle. Many inmates have been subjected to living with the black mold throughout the whole prison, not just in the showers, due to flooding in the walls, ceiling, and floors. Inmates have complained about the leaks causing the mold but the prison was unresponsive, even after the Health Department was called in.

A video was able to be recorded of the leaking pipes that are still not fixed.

America’s Police Problem reached out to Carol Leonard of Prison Reform Movement inquiring about the pictures and videos that were posted. Through them we were able to speak to both of their sources. One was willing to be interview under the guise of anonymity and the other gave permission to use their name.

What we found out was absolutely horrible and inhumane.

Certain areas of the prisons had no air conditioning, which forced multiple inmates to sleep by an industrial fan for months on end. Certain nights inmates are forced to stay up all night due to it being to hot to sleep.

According to Prison Pro, visiting hours for the general population are between 8 a.m. and 12 p.m., but according to our source prison officials do not release the inmates to see visitors till 10 a.m. and sometimes 11 a.m.

Our source, whose fiancee has been locked up in Mississippi Correctional Institute, states she has yet to see him for months due to Area 2 being on lock-down due to a shortage of staff. She also claims that the prison is infested with roaches.

During the interview with America’s Police Problem, our source told us that the prison guards have stripped inmates naked and made them walk in front of other inmates as a form of cruel and unusual punishment.

America’s Police Problem was also sent pictures, by former inmate Kelvin Sanders, of the food that inmates receive while imprisoned and there is no wonder why the inmates look so malnutritioned. The amount of food inmates are fed would not feed a teenager, let alone a grown person. The lack of food is also increasing the amount of visits to the infirmary. Our source advised us that instead of properly feeding those that are incarcerated with diabetes, the prison rather force inmates on drugs. We have included the images sent to us at the bottom of the article.

 

With the amount of money the prisons are receiving yearly, there are zero excuses for the lack of food. According to Mississippi’s Department of Corrections website,  in 2012 the state prisons recorded receiving between $40 million and $60 million. The previous years received around the same.

This is not the first time that these prisons have been accused of inhumane practices either.

According to PBS:

“In 1999, Margaret Winter, at the time associate director of the National Prison Project at the ACLU, represented HIV positive inmates who were not receiving necessary antiviral HIV combination therapy. They alleged that they were segregated from the general population, were barred from holding jobs, and lived in squalor. They were re-integrated in 2001, and the ACLU later reported that conditions for them improved. In 2002 and 2003, Winter and the ACLU pursued a series of cases on behalf of the death row inmates in the supermax unit, Unit 32. They alleged the conditions were inhumane and that the temperature reached 130 degrees Fahrenheit in some cells. Inmates described to the ACLU intense stench from sewage backups, extreme isolation, and lack of personal hygiene.”

Parchman Prison is about 30 miles from where Emmett Till was murdered in 1955.

Mississippi Department of Corrections can be reached on Facebook and the Health Department can be reached at 866-458-4948 (Toll Free) or at 601-576-7400 (Emergency Line)

EDIT 01:24 a.m. EST: Article was updated to include the name of the second source.