Prison Reform Movement

The men cry.They speak in hushed tones, fearful they'll be labeled a "snitch" by guards.Some witnessed so much mind-scarring violence that they fear they will never heal. Like the Alabama prisoner who saw another human being sodomized with a broomstick and assaulted with boiling water poured down his anus. Another man, in drug debt, was made to walk on all fours wearing a collar and leash like a dog. All too often, the voices of the people directly affected by the Alabama prison system are not heard. Effectively cut off from the outside world, the lucky men have loved ones to advocate for their safety and welfare. Others have no one, can't afford to make phone calls from prison or have difficulty getting stamps to write. In many ways, the state speaks for them. 

The latest video to surface of the gang war was recorded by a Mississippi inmate, who is claiming a corrections officer sat in front of a man's cell watching him die for 45 minutes while holding a shotgun

Inmates have continued to use social media to show their friends and family what transpires behind the gated prison walls in Mississippi.

Mississippi prisons erupted in violence last week: at least five prisoners were stabbed or beaten to death by other inmates. The Marshall Project has been reporting on prison conditions there for months. In June, we revealed how officials at the privately run Wilkinson County Correctional Facility allowed gangs to run the prison. Since then, current and former prison staff, as well as prisoners and their families, repeatedly warned us that violence could erupt any time. All it needed was a spark to set it off.

The great divide over violent offenders and mass incarceration. There is a broad political consensus to ease incarceration rates by releasing more nonviolent offenders from prison and easing laws that put them there in the first place. No such consensus exists, however, for easing sentences for those convicted of “violent” crimes, although the topic has come up a little more often during this Democratic presidential campaign than it has in past cycles.

#MUMI2019

Outraged? Call 888-887-9480 to demand an immediate investigation into Mississippi's prisons. Oversight can't wait.

Paul Skalnik may be the most prolific jailhouse informant in the nation’s history. He’s a man with a remarkable history of fraud and lying who nevertheless collaborated with one prosecutor after another over decades. What they got was dramatic courtroom testimony, true or not, that incriminated defendants.

Prison doctors are the worst. Corrections officials are unable to attract the most talented physicians because of low salaries and poor working conditions. Understaffing is a chronic problem, too, and so are legal standards and prison rules that do not hold medical staff accountable even for egregious treatment. The result is that countless ailing prisoners in Illinois and other states are deprived of the medical care the Constitution requires.

Some witnessed so much mind-scarring violence that they fear they will never heal. Like the Alabama prisoner who saw another human being sodomized with a broomstick and assaulted with boiling water poured down his anus. Another man, in drug debt, was made to walk on all fours wearing a collar and leash like a dog.