Social media can be used for good when people unite with purpose. In this case, after mounting pressure regarding the alleged inhumane conditions experienced by inmates in the Mississippi state prison system, the U.S. Justice Department has announced it’s launching an investigation.
The department’s Civil Rights Division announced today that it has opened an investigation into the conditions inside four state prisons in Mississippi, CBS News reports. This investigation will determine whether the state’s department of corrections adequately protects its inmates. The probe will also investigate the prison system’s suicide prevention methods and metal health care.
The four facilities include the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman (where several of the viral videos leaked online exposing the horrid conditions came from), the Southern Mississippi Correctional Institute, the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility and the Wilkinson County Correctional Facility.
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Since late December, 15 inmates have died inside Mississippi prisons. Most of the deaths occurred at the State Penitentiary at Parchman, which is the state’s oldest prison.
As we previously reported, Yo Gotti and Team Roc, which is the charity group affiliated with Roc Nation, filed a lawsuit against the state’s department of corrections on behalf of more than a dozen inmates.
The suit alleges that people are dying because the state “has failed to fund its prisons.”
We’ll keep you posted on the updates in this investigation.
