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How Mississippi’s troubled prison system has fared under Tate Reeves and Burl Cain

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When Gov. Tate Reeves was sworn into office nearly four years ago, his very first priority was addressing the long-troubled Mississippi prison system.

Deadly riots at the Mississippi State Penitentiary and violence in other state facilities and how state leaders were struggling to address the situation became a major national story. And the Department of Justice had moved in with an investigation into the deplorable conditions and gang violence at four of the prisons.

Reeves, who as governor oversees the Mississippi Department of Corrections, focused on the crisis during his first State of the State address a couple weeks after he was inaugurated.

He vowed in that speech to shut down the worst of the worst, Parchman’s Unit 29, to stem the violence and chaos.

He didn’t.

Today, two-thirds of Unit 29 remains open. The man Reeves put in charge, Burl Cain, said there was no need to shutter the unit and that he could bring it back online through renovations and save the state money.

“I have absolute full confidence in Burl Cain’s ability to change the culture at the Department of Corrections,” Reeves said in May 2020 when he announced Cain’s appointment to oversee the prison system.

“I have absolute confidence he will do so in a manner to make Mississippians proud. I have zero reservations about appointing him,” Reeves said.

The 2020 riots might be over, but the deaths have continued.

Over 300 people have died in Missisisppi’s prisons since Cain became commissioner, with at least 50 of those deaths attributed to homicide, suicide and drug overdoses, according to records between June 2020 and September 2023 from the State Medical Examiner’s Office.

So what has Cain done as commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Corrections?

Mississippi Today, over the past two months, took a deep look at how the long-troubled prison system has fared over the past four years under Cain and Reeves. We interviewed people who are incarcerated, former staff, advocates who have been inside the prisons and state elected officials. We scoured through numerous state documents and reports and federal court filings, submitted open records requests and we spoke with prison officials.

What did we find? Mississippi’s prison system has made some gains, but there is more work to be done.

Incarcerated people still live among crumbling infrastructure. Getting people to work in the prisons continues to be an uphill climb. Gangs continue to hold power over inmates and staff. Efforts to prepare people to return to their communities after incarceration may not be enough.

“Time is short,” Cain said in a September interview with Mississippi Today. “You have four years and we had to rock and roll.”

He was referring to the four-year term of the man who hired him – Reeves. Cain’s name will not appear on any November 2023 state election ballot, but the governor – the person with the ability to keep Cain on the job or dismiss him – is up for a vote. And he’s not running unopposed.

Reeves, in a statement released from his office, said he is grateful for what Cain has been able to accomplish in nearly four years and the commissioner’s ability to solve inherited issues.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Brandon Presley said in a statement that questions and allegations about Cain’s departure from his previous position in Louisiana give him pause and are why he would look for a different candidate to lead MDOC.

Before coming to Mississippi, Cain, a Louisiana native, was known for reducing violence and incorporating faith into the culture of Angola State Prison, also known as “The Bloodiest Prison in America.”

He had left Angola following questions uncovered in a 2017 audit about his use of corrections staff labor at his private home and receiving benefits for relatives. There were also allegations of his conflicts of interest in business and real estate deals. Throughout the confirmation process, Cain denied the allegations and noted he was not charged with any crime.

Prison violence and other ways to die

Walking into Parchman for the first time, Cain said it reminded him of his first day at Angola.

“It didn’t scare me,” he said.

“It wasn’t something I wasn’t used to, but I knew how to fix it, and that was the advantage I had over other people,” Cain said.

He wanted to prove his work could be replicated. Yet the violence has not abated.

Gov. Tate Reeves enters Unit 29 at Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, the scene of deadly rioting in late December, on Jan. 23, 2020. Credit: MDOC

There have been at least eight homicide deaths inside prison facilities during Cain’s tenure – four deaths from blunt force trauma, two stabbings, one from a lung clot and one from thermal injuries, according to records from the State Medical Examiner’s Office.

The data does not include the Sept. 7 stabbing of 23-year-old Raymond Coffey at Parchman, which is believed to be gang-related.

“We’re trying to get home to our families and get people home to their families,” Andrico Pegues, who is incarcerated at the Alcorn County Regional Correctional Facility in Corinth and spent time this year in Parchman’s Unit 29, told Missisisppi Today in a phone call.

More often than not, a majority of inmates die in Mississippi prisons of natural causes. Cancer is the top natural cause of death, according to data from the State Medical Examiner, followed by heart attacks, strokes, lung conditions and liver and kidney diseases.

Disability Rights Mississippi, which has the ability to go inside and investigate the state’s prisons and jails, said it often sees people denied medical and mental health care and accessibility services.

“We’re not seeing really significant improvements on things that incarcerated individuals need,” said Greta Kemp Martin, Disability Rights Mississippi’s litigation director. She is also the Democratic candidate for attorney general.

Disability Rights filed a federal lawsuit in 2021 against MDOC’s medical provider VitalCore Health Strategies and Cain alleging they don’t provide adequate medical and mental health care. The lawsuit is ongoing, and in court records, MDOC and VitalCore have denied the allegations. 

MDOC’s COVID-19 response: ‘We made the right decision’

The COVID-19 pandemic has also claimed lives inside Mississippi’s prisons.

At the onset of the pandemic in March 2020, MDOC suspended transfers from all county jails and visitation at all facilities, with exceptions only for attorneys and essential visitors.

By next month, the prison system reported a COVID-19 death: a Parchman inmate with underlying health conditions who had symptoms. The department responded by isolating affected areas, giving close contacts face masks, increasing screening and sanitizing frequently touched areas.

Some family members said officials weren’t doing enough to keep incarcerated people safe.

In May 2020, the Mississippi Center for Justice, MacArthur Justice Center and ACLU of Mississippi filed a class action suit against MDOC for inadequate response to COVID-19 at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Pearl and South Mississippi Correctional Institution in Leakesville. They reached an agreement with MDOC on the grounds the department would implement safety protocols.

By January 2021, MDOC had about 1,380 COVID-19 positive inmates across the system, which Cain noted was better than how other prison systems were faring. He pointed to reporting by The Marshall Project that ranked Mississippi as the 10th safest prison system for only having 21 COVID-19 deaths and 21st for COVID-19 deaths nationwide. 

“This is proof that we made the right decision in immediately buying, installing and using sanitization equipment in every area of our prisons as quickly as we could,” Cain said in a 2021 statement. “The temptation had been to wait on thousands of kits to test 17,000 inmates but testing and results would have taken weeks during which the virus could have spread like wildfire.”

SMCI had nearly 400 total COVID-19 cases between early 2020 and June 2022, according to reports released by MDOC online during the pandemic. Next was George/Greene County Correctional Facility with 235 cases, CMCF with 156 cases, Carroll/Montgomery County Regional Correctional Facility with 123 cases and Parchman with 113 total cases.

MDOC’s last online update of confirmed COVID-19 cases is dated June 9, 2022.

Janice Curtis, vice president of Mississippi Dreams Prisoner Advocacy, credited the wardens for taking people to the medical unit or into quarantine if they were exposed to the virus. She also credited Cain for being transparent about the number of active and cumulative cases on MDOC’s website and an effort was made to update the numbers.

The COVID Behind Bars Data Project at UCLA Law School, which tracked cases in state and federal jails, prisons, immigration detention centers and youth facilities, gave Mississippi an F based on how accessible its COVID-19 data was. The project noted that MDOC’s data didn’t include deaths from the virus or count how many staff were infected or died.

The Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility, shown Wednesday, July 21, 2004, in Tutwiler, Miss., was the scene of an uprising from Colorado prisioners on Wednesday, a day after a similar riot at a private prison run by the same Tennessee company near Olney Springs, Colo., prison officials said. There were no injuries in the Mississippi prison riot. Guards had everything under control within an hour, prison officials said. (AP Photo/Clarksdale Press Register, Troy Catchings) Credit: Troy Catchings / Clarksdale Press Register / AP file

The department’s data may not have been the most accurate. Around August 2020 at the private Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility run by CoreCivic, MDOC reported 14 cases even though nearly 150 of the more than 200 Vermont inmates housed there tested positive for the virus when they returned from Mississippi, prompting Vermont prison officials to seek testing for the rest of the state’s inmates in Mississippi.

MDOC began vaccinating people at CMCF in March 2021, one of the first states to do so. Officials said prisoners could decline the vaccine, but documents obtained by Mississippi Today showed refusal could result in loss of privileges, such as visitation and participation in activities.

By September 2021, 89% of the prison population was fully vaccinated.

With inadequate training, ‘you’re going to have chaos’

Perhaps the biggest, and most ongoing challenge, facing Cain at MDOC has been inadequate staffing.

A 2021 report by the Justice Department found that staffing and a lack of supervision threaten the safety of Parchman inmates and staff.

The prison has been operating at half staff since at least 2018, according to the DOJ report. In February 2020, the prison’s overall staffing vacancy was 47% and 52.9% specifically for correctional officers.

Understaffing exists across the prison system. About two-thirds of the authorized security positions are filled at CMCF and about 70% at SMCI, according to MDOC’s 2021 annual report, the most recent available.

How well-trained staff is adds to the already untenable situation.

“If you don’t train the correctional officers to do and know the job, you’re going to have chaos. You will not have control over the situation,” said Anthony Allen, a former correctional officer at Stone County Correctional Facility, which houses state and county inmates.

He said a lack of adequate training hinders staff and inmate safety, and it makes some open to inmate manipulation and later involvement in bringing in contraband.

Cain needed to get more people to work in the prison system, so he made changes, such as lowering the hiring age for correctional officers and raising salaries to attract and retain staff.

Last year, MDOC announced 10% salary increases for current correctional officers and case managers and increases in base pay for new employees. This brought the starting salary for corporal officers to $36,000, $40,000 for sergeants, $42,000 for captains and over $47,000 for majors. There were also benefits packages.

Even with raises, Mississippi remains among the states with the lowest annual mean wage for correctional officers and jailers, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

CMCF now has the largest population of inmates compared to Parchman. MDOC is focusing its staffing efforts in the Jackson metro area because it’s not as easy to attract people to work in the Delta.

Cain said inmates who abuse staff are sent to the Walnut Grove Correctional Facility in Leake County, which he says has helped lower staff violence and help staff feel safe at work.

‘We got to keep drugs out of the prisons’

The presence of gangs and contraband are a threat to Parchman’s safety, the DOJ said in its report.

In a six-month period, 630 cellphones, 555 shanks, pints of alcohol, pounds of tobacco, marijuana and various other drugs were confiscated from inside Parchman, which in its report, the DOJ said points to staff involvement.

Cain said contraband such as drugs and cellphones cause violence, but incarcerated people have used phones to inform the outside world about problems going on inside, such as during the 2020 riots.

To combat phones, Cain wants Congress to pass a law to allow Missisisppi to jam cellphone signals in the prison like the federal prisons are able to do.

Cain has said gang members extort other inmates and their family members. They have used their power to get contraband into the prison, he said, and the gangs are responsible for much of the violence against other inmates and staff.

Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain, seen here with John Hunt, director of the Corrections Investigation Division examining a drone used to try and smuggle contraband to inmates at Central Mississippi Correctional Facility, initiated an internal investigation into a Sept. 10, 2021, escape at East Mississippi Correctional Facility. Credit: Photo courtesy of MDOC/MCIR

MDOC has investigated and fired staff from various MDOC facilities found to be smuggling in drugs and other contraband.

Cain is especially cautious about who works at Walnut Grove because it is where gang members are sent. He said anyone who wants to work there has to take a polygraph test and they are asked if they are affiliated with a gang. As with any prison, they can’t work at Walnut Grove if they previously have brought drugs into a prison facility.

The presence of drugs inside the walls also jeopardizes the drug treatment MDOC makes available to inmates, Cain said.

“Addiction is a big deal,” he said, noting how many in the prison system struggle with it. “For addiction (treatment) to really work, we got to try to do everything in our power to keep drugs out of the prisons.”

Amid DOJ probe, lawsuits, state pumps money into MDOC

State leaders, lawmakers and the community were looking to Cain to quell the violence and transform prison culture.

One way to support that task was by increasing the department’s budget. Between 2014 and 2020, MDOC’s budget was cut by $215 million, the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting reported.

Rep. Kevin Horan, chairman of the House’s Corrections Committee, said when Cain arrived, he may not have realized how underfunded MDOC was. Leadership and the Governor’s Office realized, with the DOJ investigating its prisons, the department’s budget should be increased to address issues and prevent future lawsuits.

MDOC’s Fiscal Year 2021 budget appropriation was nearly $311 million and appropriations have risen each year to the most recent appropriation of about $450 million, according to the Legislative Budget Office. The department received additional money from special fund appropriations and other sources.

With an increased budget, MDOC has been able to spend more on its prison facilities each year since Cain has been commissioner, according to the department budgets since Fiscal Year 2021.

Cain said MDOC used $19 million to restore Parchman, notably cleaning up and fixing cells inside Unit 29, and the roof is being fixed. He said a new death row is expected to open in a year and a half.

The most recent Mississippi State Health Department inspection of Parchman completed in September 2022 documented backed- up shower drains, running or leaking toilets, lights out, mold and pests in various housing cells. Similar issues were found in other housing units and inspections from 2020 and 2021.

Parchman inmates talk about the huge mice or rats they see in this prison and shared photos. Credit: Special to Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting

Former MDOC staff and incarcerated people interviewed by Mississippi Today say these conditions are a violation of peoples’ constitutional rights.

Larry Waldon, incarcerated at the Holmes/Humphreys County Correctional Facility in Lexington, has advocated for reform while in prison, including through Mississippi Prison Reform Advocates.

Several weeks ago, he and a dozen other incarcerated people spoke with Mississippi Today on a group call where they shared a fraction of their experiences in the prison system and what kind of change they would like to see.

They talked about brown drinking water. One remembered not being able to sleep in the summer because of the mosquitoes. They witnessed violence among inmates and by staff.

Waldon wonders how incarcerated people at various MDOC facilities live in the conditions they do despite the millions the department receives from taxpayers.

“Inmates can’t tell the difference that you (the commissioner) have done things that are positive,” he said.

These are similar to the health and safety conditions that in 2020 caught the attention of rappers Jay-Z and Yo Gotti, who through Roc Nation filed two federal lawsuits on behalf of Mississippi prisoners and demanded state officials to fix Parchman or close the prison.

The lawsuits were dismissed in January after the inmates’ attorneys and MDOC said improvements have been made during the past three years, but the entertainers promised to continue to hold MDOC accountable and work toward long-lasting change that protects inmate safety.

Isolate problem inmates

Under Cain, two prison buildings have been refurbished and reopened to house maximum security inmates, those undergoing drug and alcohol treatment and women inmates.

A federal lawsuit closed the privately run Walnut Grove Correctional Facility in 2016, which a federal judge described as a “picture of such horror as should be unrealized anywhere in the civilized world.” It housed people convicted for serious crimes when they were children.

Mississippi Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain reopened Walnut Grove Correctional Facility, which was closed five years ago.

Cain saw a new use for the facility: alcohol and substance addiction programs on one side and on the other, a maximum-security facility for gang members, those who attack corrections staff and those who extort others.

In an interview, Cain said the facility is modeled after Angola’s disciplinary unit, the now-closed Camp J, and he said it is having a similar effect to help ease violence. Cain said the goal of isolating problem inmates is to protect the majority who are trying to stay out of trouble and better themselves.

“If you can’t peacefully co-exist, go live by yourself,” he said about sending people to Walnut Grove.

Cain said Walnut Grove has also helped reduce the prison-wide gang population from 6,400 when he took office to 1,400 more recently.

However, some former prison staff members and current inmates interviewed by Mississippi Today don’t see Walnut Grove as a complete solution. The DOJ said in its 2021 report that the strategy of sending gang leaders away isn’t a comprehensive strategy because a new leader will emerge to replace them.

The next facility to reopen was Delta Correctional Facility, a women’s facility in Greenwood that was a private prison and closed in 2012.

By the end of 2022, most of the women were moved to Delta Correctional. The move put women further away from their families and into an area lacking adequate health care options, particularly for gynecological care.

Women had been exclusively housed at CMCF since the early 2000s separate from the men, but last year had to leave their longtime space in the 1A Yard to go to 720, a men’s unit – a decision the women protested. Cain said the move was meant to limit interaction between the men and women.

As of October, there are about 330 women at Delta and about 850 at CMCF, according to MDOC records. In an interview, Cain said the two women’s facilities satisfy a need for additional space.

“That’s why it was just time (to open Delta) to anticipate in the next 15 years or so we’d have more women, so might as well divide it and conquer it right now,” he said.

Cain’s four pillars for fixing prisons

In his 2020 confirmation hearing, Cain described four main tenets to fixing the prison system: good food, good medicine, good playing and good praying.

He went on to say that he wanted to build churches in the state’s prisons and start ministry programs like at Angola. That promise was realized this summer when a chapel at the women’s unit at CMCF opened for services.

Cain said there are plans to place churches at SMCI and Parchman through private donations, which is how the first church was built.

In Mississippi’s prisons, inmates can earn a seminary degree from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and become chaplains. Senior U.S. District Judge Keith Starrett, who has long advocated for prison reform, said, through spiritual programs, work and character components, Cain is helping people build new habits and lifestyles with accountability.

Another path inmates may take to improve themselves is education.

The state prisons and regional facilities have high school diploma programs. Some offer college level courses through the Prison-to-College Pipeline Program by the University of Mississippi, and Mississippi Valley State University is the first HBCU to offer a prison education program.

Kerry Gipson, who is incarcerated at the Holmes/Humphreys County Correctional Facility, wants to see more classes and educational programs. The commissioner talks about bringing programs across the prison system, “but (they are) not everywhere like he promised,” Gipson said.

Lead by example

In his nearly four years as commissioner, Cain has focused on skilled job training programs that he said he believes will give people careers after prison.

He plans to ask the Legislature to expand a work release program, following success from the pilot last year that operated through the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office. He said none of the participants returned to prison and they were able to go home with $2,000 in their pockets.

Cain said he wants to lead by example and encourage business owners to hire formerly incarcerated people, which is what he did for chaplains and other MDOC staff. Among them is George King, who served 25 years at Angola for manslaughter and now is the MDOC’s statewide program director.

Through MDOC’s job training schools, inmates can learn to drive and pour concrete trucks. They can train to be a commercial truck driver through a simulator. They learn to weld in a mobile unit that travels among the prisons. Cain wants people to walk out with certifications and licenses.

While women can also participate in those programs, there are also some specifically for them, such as the cosmetology school that opened last month at Delta Correctional.

Inmates at Delta Correctional Facility in Greenwood invited fellow inmates and program leaders to sit in their cosmetology chairs for demonstrations and consultations of their skills. Credit: Courtesy of MDOC

In the spring, nearly 30 women close to release at the Flowood Community Work Center graduated from a health services program – MDOC’s first reentry program at the center.

The commissioner doesn’t think the men have better job opportunities available to them than the women. Women can join the programs from traditionally male-dominated, better-paying industries, he said. They just need the motivation to go into those fields and learn different skills.

Curtis, of Mississippi Dreams Prisoner Advocacy, said that barrier still exists, and often it seems that the women don’t get as many options to better themselves.

Can one person fix Mississippi’s prisons?

Cain sees job training, education and morality as the pillars of reentry – the way to reduce recidivism and the taxpayer’s burden to fund the prison system.

Judge Starrett said he has learned that you can’t send someone to prison for a few years and expect them to change their lives. Seeing Cain focus on skills training and reentry reinforces his view that the commissioner is doing the right thing.

It took a year to get the training schools running, and the commissioner hopes the Legislature will support his request for more programs. The process has been slow, and Cain said he’s in a hurry to do more – prevent people from returning and from there being new crime victims.

“We’re taking in several thousand people this last year and several thousand people left. They left unprepared. We’re failing” he said. “We got to have them prepared so they don’t fail, so I’m in a hurry for their sake.”

Incarcerated people and advocates, however, don’t see the state’s reentry efforts as enough.

Tomon Clark, who is incarcerated at the Washington County Regional Correctional Facility in Greenville, said he and others don’t have the same access to job training programs like there are at the prisons.

He also wants to see more at his regional facility to prevent people from sitting around and learning to become better criminals.

“You can’t rehabilitate them if there’s not opportunity,” he said by phone.

Kemp Martin has had clients through Disability Rights Mississippi who want to work or attend school, but she said they are discouraged from participating because they have mobility challenges, and they would need to get a prison staff member to take them to the programs.

“I don’t care how much training you give someone or how set up for a job they are afterward,” she said. “If while they are incarcerated they languish, they are not treated for medical issues they have and they are not given mental health treatment, they are not fully set up for success.”

Meanwhile, Mississippi leads the world in mass incarceration. Since May 2022, the prison population has been above 19,000 – an increase from the population low of around 17,000 MDOC reached during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Advocates are looking for solutions to ease the prison population, such as sentencing reform, supporting a functioning indigent public defense system and parole.

Can Mississippi’s prisons be fixed by one person? Not everyone thinks so.

“There are so many systemic things wrong with MDOC,” said Paloma Wu, from the Mississippi Center for Justice. “I don’t think any one commissioner can come in and have a huge dent.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Mississippi Today

Mississippi River flooding Vicksburg, expected to crest on Monday

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mississippitoday.org – @alxrzr – 2025-04-25 16:04:00

Warren County Emergency Management Director John Elfer said Friday floodwaters from the Mississippi River, which have reached homes in and around Vicksburg, will likely persist until early May. Elfer estimated there areabout 15 to 20 roads underwater in the area.

A truck sits in high water after the owner parked, then boated to his residence on Chickasaw Road in Vicksburg as a rising Mississippi River causes backwater flooding, Friday, April 25, 2025.

“We’re about half a foot (on the river gauge) from a major flood,” he said. “But we don’t think it’s going to be like in 2011, so we can kind of manage this.”

The National Weather projects the river to crest at 49.5 feet on Monday, making it the highest peak at the Vicksburg gauge since 2020. Elfer said some residents in north Vicksburg — including at the Ford Subdivision as well as near Chickasaw Road and Hutson Street — are having to take boats to get home, adding that those who live on the unprotected side of the levee are generally prepared for flooding.

A rising Mississippi River causing backwater flooding near Chickasaw Road in Vicksburg, Friday, April 25, 2025.
Old tires aligned a backyard as a deterrent to rising water north of Vicksburg along U.S. 61, Friday, April 25, 2025.
As the Mississippi River rises, backwater flooding creeps towards a home located on Falk Steel Road in Vicksburg, Friday, April 25, 2025.

“There are a few (inundated homes), but we’ve mitigated a lot of them,” he said. “Some of the structures have been torn down or raised. There are a few people that still live on the wet side of the levee, but they kind of know what to expect. So we’re not too concerned with that.”

The river first reached flood stage in the city — 43 feet — on April 14. State officials closed Highway 465, which connects the Eagle Lake community just north of Vicksburg to Highway 61, last Friday.

Flood waters along Kings Point Road in Vicksburg, Friday, April 25, 2025.

Elfer said the areas impacted are mostly residential and he didn’t believe any businesses have been affected, emphasizing that downtown Vicksburg is still safe for visitors. He said Warren County has worked with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency to secure pumps and barriers.

“Everybody thus far has been very cooperative,” he said. “We continue to tell people stay out of the flood areas, don’t drive around barricades and don’t drive around road close signs. Not only is it illegal, it’s dangerous.”

NWS projects the river to stay at flood stage in Vicksburg until May 6. The river reached its record crest of 57.1 feet in 2011.

The boat launch area is closed and shored up on Levee Street in Vicksburg as the Mississippi River rises, Friday, April 25, 2025.
The boat launch area (right) is closed and under water on Levee Street in Vicksburg as the Mississippi River rises, Friday, April 25, 2025.
City of Vicksburg workers shore up the bank along Levee Street as the Mississippi River rises, Friday, April 25, 2025.
The old pedestrian bridge spanning the Mississippi River in Vicksburg, Friday, April 25, 2025.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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With domestic violence law, victims ‘will be a number with a purpose,’ mother says

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mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-04-25 15:07:00

Joslin Napier. Carlos Collins. Bailey Mae Reed. 

They are among Mississippi domestic violence homicide victims whose family members carried their photos as the governor signed a bill that will establish a board to study such deaths and how to prevent them. 

Tara Gandy, who lost her daughter Napier in Waynesboro in 2022, said it’s a moment she plans to tell her 5-year-old grandson about when he is old enough. Napier’s presence, in spirit, at the bill signing can be another way for her grandson to feel proud of his mother. 

“(The board) will allow for my daughter and those who have already lost their lives to domestic violence … to no longer be just a number,” Gandy said. “They will be a number with a purpose.” 

Family members at the April 15 private bill signing included Ashla Hudson, whose son Collins, died last year in Jackson. Grandparents Mary and Charles Reed and brother Colby Kernell attended the event in honor of Bailey Mae Reed, who died in Oxford in 2023. 

Joining them were staff and board members from the Mississippi Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the statewide group that supports shelters and advocated for the passage of Senate Bill 2886 to form a Domestic Violence Facility Review Board. 

The law will go into effect July 1, and the coalition hopes to partner with elected officials who will make recommendations for members to serve on the board. The coalition wants to see appointees who have frontline experience with domestic violence survivors, said Luis Montgomery, public policy specialist for the coalition. 

A spokesperson from Gov. Tate Reeves’ office did not respond to a request for comment Friday.

Establishment of the board would make Mississippi the 45th state to review domestic violence fatalities. 

Montgomery has worked on passing a review board bill since December 2023. After an unsuccessful effort in 2024, the coalition worked to build support and educate people about the need for such a board. 

In the recent legislative session, there were House and Senate versions of the bill that unanimously passed their respective chambers. Authors of the bills are from both political parties. 

The review board is tasked with reviewing a variety of documents to learn about the lead up and circumstances in which people died in domestic violence-related fatalities, near fatalities and suicides – records that can include police records, court documents, medical records and more. 

From each review, trends will emerge and that information can be used for the board to make recommendations to lawmakers about how to prevent domestic violence deaths. 

“This is coming at a really great time because we can really get proactive,” Montgomery said. 

Without a board and data collection, advocates say it is difficult to know how many people have died or been injured in domestic-violence related incidents.

A Mississippi Today analysis found at least 300 people, including victims, abusers and collateral victims, died from domestic violence between 2020 and 2024. That analysis came from reviewing local news stories, the Gun Violence Archive, the National Gun Violence Memorial, law enforcement reports and court documents. 

Some recent cases the board could review are the deaths of Collins, Napier and Reed. 

In court records, prosecutors wrote that Napier, 24, faced increased violence after ending a relationship with Chance Fabian Jones. She took action, including purchasing a firearm and filing for a protective order against Jones.

Jones’s trial is set for May 12 in Wayne County. His indictment for capital murder came on the first anniversary of her death, according to court records. 

Collins, 25, worked as a nurse and was from Yazoo City. His ex-boyfriend Marcus Johnson has been indicted for capital murder and shooting into Collins’ apartment. Family members say Collins had filed several restraining orders against Johnson. 

Johnson was denied bond and remains in jail. His trial is scheduled for July 28 in Hinds County.  

He was a Jackson police officer for eight months in 2013. Johnson was separated from the department pending disciplinary action leading up to immediate termination, but he resigned before he was fired, Jackson police confirmed to local media. 

Reed, 21, was born and raised in Michigan and moved to Water Valley to live with her grandparents and help care for her cousin, according to her obituary. 

Kylan Jacques Phillips was charged with first degree murder for beating Reed, according to court records. In February, the court ordered him to undergo a mental evaluation to determine if he is competent to stand trial, according to court documents. 

At the bill signing, Gandy said it was bittersweet and an honor to meet the families of other domestic violence homicide victims.

“We were there knowing we are not alone, we can travel this road together and hopefully find ways to prevent and bring more awareness about domestic violence,” she said.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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Court to rule on DeSoto County Senate districts with special elections looming

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mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-04-25 15:06:00

A federal three-judge panel will rule in coming days on how political power in northwest Mississippi will be allocated in the state Senate and whether any incumbents in the DeSoto County area might have to campaign against each other in November special elections.  

The panel, comprised of all George W. Bush-appointed judges, ordered state officials last week to, again, craft a new Senate map for the area in the suburbs of Memphis. The panel has held that none of the state’s prior maps gave Black voters a realistic chance to elect candidates of their choice. 

The latest map proposed by the all-Republican State Board of Election Commissioners tweaked only four Senate districts in northwest Mississippi and does not pit any incumbent senators against each other. 

The state’s proposal would keep the Senate districts currently held by Sen. Michael McLendon, a Republican from Hernando and Sen. Kevin Blackwell, a Republican from Southaven, in majority-white districts. 

But it makes Sen. David Parker’s district a slightly majority-Black district. Parker, a white Republican from Olive Branch, would run in a district with a 50.1% black voting-age population, according to court documents. 

The proposal also maintains the district held by Sen. Reginald Jackson, a Democrat from Marks, as a majority-Black district, although it reduces the Black voting age population from 61% to 53%.  

Gov. Tate Reeves, Secretary of State Michael Watson, and Attorney General Lynn Fitch comprise the State Board of Election Commissioners. Reeves and Watson voted to approve the plan. But Watson, according to meeting documents, expressed a wish that the state had more time to consider different proposals. 

Fitch did not attend the meeting, but Deputy Attorney General Whitney Lipscomb attended in her place. Lipscomb voted against the map, although it is unclear why. Fitch’s office declined to comment on why she voted against the map because it involves pending litigation. 

The reason for redrawing the districts is that the state chapter of the NAACP and Black voters in the state sued Mississippi officials for drawing legislative districts in a way that dilutes Black voting power. 

The plaintiffs, represented by the ACLU, are likely to object to the state’s newest proposal, and they have until April 29 to file an objection with the court

The plaintiffs have put forward two alternative proposals for the area in the event the judges rule against the state’s plans. 

The first option would place McLendon and Blackwell in the same district, and the other would place McLendon and Jackson in the same district. 

It is unclear when the panel of judges will issue a ruling on the state’s plan, but they will not issue a ruling until the plaintiffs file their remaining court documents next week. 

While the November election is roughly six months away, changing legislative districts across counties and precincts is technical work, and local election officials need time to prepare for the races. 

The judges have not yet ruled on the full elections calendar, but U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Leslie Southwick said at a hearing earlier this month that the panel was committed have the elections in November. 

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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