Legal group seeks federal inquiry into Mississippi prisons

Prisoner advocates are calling on the federal government to investigate Mississippi’s prison system for possible civil rights violations, saying the violence of recent days highlights deliberate violations of inmates’ constitutional right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. The Southern Poverty Law Center, the Mississippi conference of the NAACP, the Mississippi chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups made the request to the U.S. Department of Justice. “The Mississippi prison system is in a state of acute and undeniable crises, with five deaths in just the last ten days, and a history of preventable deaths and injuries stretching back years,” the 23-page complaint states.

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