Lawsuit Claims ‘Barbaric’ Conditions at Mississippi Prison

By HOLBROOK MOHR/Associated Press

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – A federal lawsuit says inmates in a Mississippi prison are isolated in “barbaric” conditions and denied access to medical and mental health care.

The lawsuit was filed Thursday by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Poverty Law Center on behalf of prisoners at the East Mississippi Correctional Facility near Meridian.

It was filed in U.S. District Court in Jackson and names the Mississippi Department of Corrections as a defendant.

The lawsuit alleges mentally ill patients are denied proper care and rapes, stabbings and beatings are “rampant.” MDOC spokesman Tara Booth says MDOC has not been served with the lawsuit.

She says MDOC will respond in court. The prison is run by Management and Training Corp. of Centerville, Utah. The company is not named a defendant in the lawsuit.