LUY-Development

Tag: prison

  • Oklahoma jail employees charged for playing ‘Baby Shark’ on repeat

    Oklahoma jail employees charged for playing ‘Baby Shark’ on repeat

    “It was unfortunate that I could not find a felony statute to fit this fact scenario,” Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater said.

    OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Two former Oklahoma jail employees and their supervisor face misdemeanor cruelty charges after investigators found they forced inmates to stand handcuffed for hours and listen to the children’s song “Baby Shark” on repeat, a prosecutor said Monday.

    At least four inmates were secured to a wall with their hands cuffed behind them while the song played on a loop at a loud volume for hours, The Oklahoman reported. The separate incidents occurred in November and December, according to court records.

    The misdemeanor charges were filed Monday against former Oklahoma County jail employees Gregory Cornell Butler Jr. and Christian Charles Miles, both 21, and their supervisor, Christopher Raymond Hendershott, 50.

    “It was unfortunate that I could not find a felony statute to fit this fact scenario,” Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater said. “I would have preferred filing a felony on this behavior.”

    Butler and Miles are accused of imposing the discipline and Hendershott is accused of knowing about it but not stopping it, the newspaper reported. Court records do not list an attorney for any of them.

    Sheriff P.D. Taylor said Monday that Butler and Miles resigned during an internal investigation and that Hendershott retired.

    “We don’t tolerate it,” Taylor said of the mistreatment. “We always did an excellent job policing ourselves.”

    The “Baby Shark” song gained huge popularity two years ago after the company Pinkfong released its first video online. The video has since been viewed more than 6.5 billion times.

  • Panel Backs Ex-Louisiana Warden To Lead Mississippi Prisons

    Panel Backs Ex-Louisiana Warden To Lead Mississippi Prisons

    JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The Mississippi Senate Corrections Committee on Tuesday unanimously endorsed a former prison warden who faced ethics questions in Louisiana to be the new leader of Mississippi’s troubled prison system.

    The full Senate is expected to vote in the next few days on confirming Burl Cain as corrections commissioner. Cain, 77, has been working as commissioner since May 20, when Republican Gov. Tate Reeves announced he was nominating him to the $132,000-a-year job after a nationwide search. It’s not unusual for a nominee to work while awaiting confirmation.

    Corrections committee members said during the confirmation hearing Tuesday that a background report by a Mississippi legislative watchdog group cleared any concerns they had about Cain’s ethics issues in Louisiana. But, members of the committee would not release the report to The Associated Press, citing confidentiality.

    Mississippi’s prison system is under federal investigation and has struggled for years with tight budgets, short staffing and shoddy living conditions.

    “Failure here is not an option to me,” Cain told senators Tuesday.

    Two lawsuits filed on behalf of inmates say that the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman is dangerous, vermin-infested and unfit for human habitation. Attorneys in both are being paid by entertainment mogul Jay-Z, rapper Yo Gotti and Team Roc, the philanthropic arm of Jay-Z’s Roc Nation.

    “We’re going to fix Parchman,” Cain said Tuesday.

    Mississippi has one of the highest incarceration rates in the nation. The U.S. Justice Department announced in February that it is investigating the state prison system after several inmates were killed or injured in outbursts of violence in late December and early January.

    During his 21-year tenure at Angola, Cain was credited with improving conditions and decreasing violence. He was also known for pushing the expansion of religious outreach. After his 2016 resignation, a Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s Office report said nearly $28,000 in public money was used for the unauthorized purchase of appliances and household furnishings for Cain’s home on prison grounds. It also said Cain’s relatives stayed overnight in state-owned homes at the prison nearly 200 times.

    Cain resigned a year before the audit was issued, after reports by The Advocate about his private real estate dealings. The newspaper reported that Cain sold interest in tracts of land to two developers who were friends or family of two Angola inmates convicted of murder, raising questions about whether Cain had violated corrections policy.

    “I’ve been thoroughly investigated, and I’ve come out clean,” Cain said Tuesday.

    Last month, Reeves characterized Cain’s time at Angola as a success story, saying: “They went from beatings to Bible study.”

    Cain told senators Tuesday that he is still chairman of a prison employees’ credit union in Louisiana and that he is chief executive officer of Global Prison Seminaries Foundation, a nonprofit organization that’s based in Texas and operates in 17 states.

    Cain told reporters after the hearing that someone else is now running the foundation and he has requested an ethics opinion on whether he can be a paid consultant for the foundation while he is Mississippi corrections commissioner. He said he took a pay cut from his previous salary of $150,000 to come to Mississippi. He said he is not paid by the credit union.

    A previous Mississippi corrections commissioner, Christopher Epps, is in federal prison after pleading guilty in 2015 to money laundering and filing false tax returns. Prosecutors said he took nearly $1.5 million in bribes from contractors doing business with Mississippi prisons.

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    Associated Press writer Kevin McGill in New Orleans contributed to this report.

  • Mississippi Prison System Confirms Its 1st Case Of COVID-19

    Mississippi Prison System Confirms Its 1st Case Of COVID-19

    The Mississippi Department of Corrections on Monday night made its first announcement of a coronavirus case in one of the state prisons.

    JACKSON, Miss. (AP) —  An inmate at the Mississippi State Penitentiary was found to have had to the virus after he died, the department said in a news release. It did not give the inmate’s name or say when he died. It said he had underlying health problems.

    “We are committed to protecting the health and well-being of all within our system,” Interim Corrections Commissioner Tommy Taylor said.

    He said that since the beginning of the pandemic, Mississippi has limited the transfer of inmates from prison to prison. The only visitors allowed are attorneys, and daily screenings are done of prison workers.

    “With this first positive case, we have further isolated all the affected areas and increased screenings for all the inmates who came in contact with the individual,” Taylor said. “Inmates who came in close contact with the positive individual have been provided with masks.”

  • Louisiana Urged To Reduce Jail Population To Combat Spread of Covid-19

    Louisiana Urged To Reduce Jail Population To Combat Spread of Covid-19

    BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — The Louisiana branch of the American Civil Liberties Union urged corrections officials to reduce the state’s jail and prison population in order to combat the spread of the new coronavirus.

    In a news release Thursday, the ACLU said officials should expedite parole hearings for elderly prison inmates and immediately release those in jails awaiting trials who aren’t considered safety risks.

    Their request came amid growing concern about the spread of the coronavirus in Louisiana.

    Gov. John Bel Edwards said the number of people testing positive for the COVID-19 disease caused by the virus grew to 19 by Thursday afternoon, only three days after the state’s first case was reported.

    Edwards declared a public health emergency Wednesday. On Thursday, the state corrections department suspended visitation at all state prisons for 30 days, while visitor access was limited at nursing homes and hospitals around Louisiana, in an effort to prevent the spread of the coronavirus to vulnerable populations.

    Advocates said standard hygiene practices, such as frequent hand washing, aren’t possible in jails and prisons. Some inmates could have limited access to sinks and alcohol-based hand sanitizer is usually considered contraband.

    Prisoner rights advocates argued that since the elderly and people with preexisting health conditions are at a higher risk of catching the virus, they shouldn’t be incarcerated during the outbreak, if at all possible.

    Advocates said those in jail awaiting trial also shouldn’t be imprisoned if they don’t pose a risk to public safety, especially since sometimes those inmates are simply too poor to post bail.

    The ACLU is also advocating for humanitarian parole release of all refugees and asylum-seekers being held in Louisiana. According to the organization, Louisiana holds the second-highest number of immigrant detainees in the U.S.

    The corrections department didn’t immediately comment on the ACLU’s request.

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    The Associated Press receives support for health and science coverage from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

  • Feds Investigate Wilkinson County Correctional Facility And Three Other Mississippi Prisons After String Of Deaths

    Feds Investigate Wilkinson County Correctional Facility And Three Other Mississippi Prisons After String Of Deaths

    Justice Department opens a civil rights investigation into the Mississippi prison system after a 15 inmate deaths in the last four months.

    WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal prosecutors are looking into the conditions at four state prisons following the deaths of at least 15 inmates since December. The investigation is examining whether state corrections officials are adequately protecting prisoners from physical harm and will also look into whether there are adequate healthcare and suicide prevention services.

    The investigation, by the Justice Department’s civil rights division, will specifically focus on conditions at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, Southern Mississippi Correctional Institute, Central Mississippi Correctional Facility and the Wilkinson County Correctional Facility, the Justice Department said.

    The use of such investigations examining the patterns and practices of law enforcement agencies has been curtailed under the Trump administration compared with their use during the Obama administration.

    By MICHAEL BALSAMO and EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS
    Associated Press
  • Fifth Inmate Killed In More Violence In Mississippi Prisons

    Fifth Inmate Killed In More Violence In Mississippi Prisons

    A fifth inmate has died violently in a Mississippi prison, raising further questions about security as clashes between prisoners continue.

    Sunflower County Coroner Heather Burton told local news outlets that 36-year-old Dennoris Howell was stabbed to death before dawn Friday at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman. Howell is the fifth inmate to be killed by another inmate since Sunday, and the third at Parchman.

    Burton and Sunflower County Sheriff James Haywood have described the violence as related to a dispute between members of gangs, but officials with the Mississippi Department of Corrections haven’t said what’s driving the violence. All state prisons statewide are locked down, confining inmates to cells and blocking visitors.

    Another inmate was stabbed in the 3 a.m. Friday incident and taken to a Memphis, Tennessee, hospital. He was not identified.

    The stabbing took place on the same unit at Parchman where a 32-year-old inmate was stabbed and killed Thursday in a fracas that left multiple prisoners injured. That incident brought a heavy police response, with state troopers, corrections officers and deputies from multiple counties responding. Inmates set another unit at Parchman on fire. Mississippi Department of Corrections spokeswoman Grace Simmons Fisher said the fire caused no structural damage. Inmates were evacuated and later moved back in, Fisher said.

    Howell was convicted of manslaughter in Marshall County in 2012 and sentenced to 17 years in prison. The troubles began Sunday at South Mississippi Correctional Institution near Leakesville, when inmate Terradance Dobbins, 40, was killed and two others hurt. Prison officials said the killing was part of a “major disturbance.” The Greene County prison can pose particular difficulties to secure because hundreds of prisoners are housed in bunks in one large room, instead of in individual cells. The prison was locked down for almost all of 2019, in part because of guard shortages.

    Mississippi’s prison system has struggled to fill guard vacancies, with outgoing Corrections Commissioner Pelicia Hall saying it’s difficult to attract people with salaries that start below $25,000 a year. Some of the guards that do get hired end up bringing illegal drugs and cell phones into prisons, with some being criminally prosecuted. Hall announced Tuesday that she will resign in mid-January to take a private sector job signaling incoming Gov. Tate Reeves won’t retain her upon taking office Jan. 14.

    Tuesday at Parchman, 25-year-old inmate Walter Gates was stabbed and several other inmates were injured during a fight that spread to multiple units of the sprawling prison, which sits on thousands of acres in the Mississippi Delta.

    Earlier Friday, before the killing at Parchman, 26-year-old prisoner Gregory Emary of Hernando was killed at the Chickasaw County Regional Correctional Facility, a county-run jail that holds state inmates. The violence came even as U.S. District Judge William Barbour ruled Tuesday that while conditions may have previously been poor at East Mississippi Correctional Facility near Meridian, there’s no longer any evidence that the privately run prison is violating inmates’ rights.

    By JEFF AMY
    Associated Press