Four years later, despite the remodeling, Health Department inspections reflect that conditions at Mississippi prisons have improved, but plenty of problems still exist.
Inspection reports show that water continues to leak from the ceiling at Parchman prison when it rains. Some showers harbor mold, some toilets don’t work, and some sink spigots are broken.
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Johnson said staffing remains a challenge. “Until we take seriously the need to dramatically alter the staff-inmate ratio at the proper levels by substantially reducing the number of people in our prisons,” he said, “the risks of violence remain quite high.”
Mississippi needs to take a hard look at reducing the prison population because “we’re not going to be able to hire our way out of the problem,” he said. “People will take less money not to work at a prison. They’re not attractive jobs.”
The fact there hasn’t been an explosion of violence over the last five years can make people complacent when in reality such violence could return when a substantial number of people are crammed into a small space with “limited supervision, limited exercise and limited participation in programs that improve the quality of life,” he said.
Guaranteed no.
