Mississippi Today
State's lack of jail inspections a disaster in the making, lawyer says
State’s lack of jail inspections a disaster in the making, lawyer says
Mississippi’s failure to require inspections in jails bodes disaster, says the lawyer who oversaw jail and prison conditions for decades.
In 2017, state lawmakers stopped providing funds to the Mississippi Department of Health to carry out those inspections after a federal court stopped requiring such inspections under Gates v. Collier, the longtime lawsuit brought by state inmates.
Without those inspections, “there’s no check, there’s none,” said Jackson lawyer Ron Welch, who represented those inmates in Mississippi jails and prisons under the court order settling that case. “It’s giving sheriffs a free pass. They can do as they wish.”
He called county supervisors, who fund the sheriffs and jails, “willfully blind” accomplices.
An investigation by the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting at Mississippi Today and The New York Times shows that in addition to this lack of inspections, there is a lack of oversight. No state regulator has the authority to fine a sheriff for endangering people in custody or for failing to train the staff who operate the jail.
David Fathi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union National Prison Project, said this is a national problem as well. Unlike almost every other country, he said, the U.S. has “no independent oversight over what happens in prisons and jails.”
This lack of oversight contributes to the abuse of those held behind bars “that is entirely foreseeable,” he said. “Their lives are systematically devalued.”
After Mississippi stopped inspecting jails, allegations arose in 2020 that Noxubee County deputies coerced Elizabeth Layne Reed, a woman incarcerated at the jail, into having sex.
Her lawsuit said two deputies, Vance Phillips and Damon Clark, gave her a cellphone and other perks, including a sofa in her cell, so that she would have sexual encounters with them. She described the first encounters as taking place outside the jail, only to be followed by those in the interrogation room, in the evidence, even in her cell.
She said in an interview that she wanted the public to know what happened to her in the hope that others would come forward. “It made me terrified to trust anybody,” she said. “Women in jail and prison need to be protected.”
According to the lawsuit, the sheriff at the time, Terry Grassaree, knew all about his deputies’ “sexual contacts and shenanigans,” but did nothing to stop them. Instead, the lawsuit alleged, the sheriff “sexted” her and demanded that she use the phone the deputies had given her to send him “a continuous stream of explicit videos, photographs and texts” while she was in jail. She also alleged that Grassaree touched her in a “sexual manner.”
The lawsuit was settled for an undisclosed amount.
Grassaree is charged with bribery and lying to the FBI when he denied that he requested the nude photos and videos from Reed. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Juan Barnett, who chairs the Senate Corrections Committee, said he supports resumed funding for jail inspections to “help curb abuse. The more oversight, the better.”
Clay County Sheriff Eddie Scott, who serves on the executive board of the Mississippi Sheriffs’ Association, said he believes most sheriffs would support the return of state-funded inspections as long as they are reasonable. “We have to fight for our budgets to keep them up,” he said. “Oversight and reports have always helped me.”
Eight of Mississippi’s 82 sheriffs have jails that have been certified by the state Board on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Training; the others haven’t been.
Scott said such certification reduces the cost of insurance and gives employees guidance on the best ways to run a jail.
He hopes to one day receive certification from the American Correctional Association, he said. “Getting state accredited puts me a leg up.”
Although Mississippi recently received a record $4 billion budget surplus, Welch said there’s no political will right now to aid those behind bars, despite the fact that Mississippi prides itself as being part of the Bible Belt.
“God taught us to love our neighbor,” he said. “The principle is ‘do not inflict needless pain on any person.’ That’s the heart of it.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Mississippi Today
On this day in 1997
Dec. 22, 1997
The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the conviction of white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith for the 1963 murder of Medgar Evers.
In the court’s 4–2 decision, Justice Mike Mills praised efforts “to squeeze justice out of the harm caused by a furtive explosion which erupted from dark bushes on a June night in Jackson, Mississippi.”
He wrote that Beckwith’s constitutional right to a speedy trial had not been denied. His “complicity with the Sovereignty Commission’s involvement in the prior trials contributed to the delay.”
The decision did more than ensure that Beckwith would stay behind bars. The conviction helped clear the way for other prosecutions of unpunished killings from the Civil Rights Era.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Medicaid expansion tracker approaches $1 billion loss for Mississippi
About the time people ring in the new year next week, the digital tracker on Mississippi Today’s homepage tabulating the amount of money the state is losing by not expanding Medicaid will hit $1 billion.
The state has lost $1 billion not since the start of the quickly departing 2024 but since the beginning of the state’s fiscal year on July 1.
Some who oppose Medicaid expansion say the digital tracker is flawed.
During an October news conference, when state Auditor Shad White unveiled details of his $2 million study seeking ways to cut state government spending, he said he did not look at Medicaid expansion as a method to save money or grow state revenue.
“I think that (Mississippi Today) calculator is wrong,” White said. “… I don’t think that takes into account how many people are going to be moved off the federal health care exchange where their health care is paid for fully by the federal government and moved onto Medicaid.”
White is not the only Mississippi politician who has expressed concern that if Medicaid expansion were enacted, thousands of people would lose their insurance on the exchange and be forced to enroll in Medicaid for health care coverage.
Mississippi Today’s projections used for the tracker are based on studies conducted by the Institutions of Higher Learning University Research Center. Granted, there are a lot of variables in the study that are inexact. It is impossible to say, for example, how many people will get sick and need health care, thus increasing the cost of Medicaid expansion. But is reasonable that the projections of the University Research Center are in the ballpark of being accurate and close to other studies conducted by health care experts.
White and others are correct that Mississippi Today’s calculator does not take into account money flowing into the state for people covered on the health care exchange. But that money does not go to the state; it goes to insurance companies that, granted, use that money to reimburse Mississippians for providing health care. But at least a portion of the money goes to out-of-state insurance companies as profits.
Both Medicaid expansion and the health care exchange are part of the Affordable Care Act. Under Medicaid expansion people earning up to $20,120 annually can sign up for Medicaid and the federal government will pay the bulk of the cost. Mississippi is one of 10 states that have not opted into Medicaid expansion.
People making more than $14,580 annually can garner private insurance through the health insurance exchanges, and people below certain income levels can receive help from the federal government in paying for that coverage.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, legislation championed and signed into law by President Joe Biden significantly increased the federal subsidies provided to people receiving insurance on the exchange. Those increased subsidies led to many Mississippians — desperate for health care — turning to the exchange for help.
White, state Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney, Gov. Tate Reeves and others have expressed concern that those people would lose their private health insurance and be forced to sign up for Medicaid if lawmakers vote to expand Medicaid.
They are correct.
But they do not mention that the enhanced benefits authored by the Biden administration are scheduled to expire in December 2025 unless they are reenacted by Congress. The incoming Donald Trump administration has given no indication it will continue the enhanced subsidies.
As a matter of fact, the Trump administration, led by billionaire Elon Musk, is looking for ways to cut federal spending.
Some have speculated that Medicaid expansion also could be on Musk’s chopping block.
That is possible. But remember congressional action is required to continue the enhanced subsidies. On the flip side, congressional action would most likely be required to end or cut Medicaid expansion.
Would the multiple U.S. senators and House members in the red states that have expanded Medicaid vote to end a program that is providing health care to thousands of their constituents?
If Congress does not continue Biden’s enhanced subsidies, the rates for Mississippians on the exchange will increase on average about $500 per year, according to a study by KFF, a national health advocacy nonprofit. If that occurs, it is likely that many of the 280,000 Mississippians on the exchange will drop their coverage.
The result will be that Mississippi’s rate of uninsured — already one of the highest in the nation – will rise further, putting additional pressure on hospitals and other providers who will be treating patients who have no ability to pay.
In the meantime, the Mississippi Today counter that tracks the amount of money Mississippi is losing by not expanding Medicaid keeps ticking up.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1911
Dec. 21, 1911
Josh Gibson, the Negro League’s “Home Run King,” was born in Buena Vista, Georgia.
When the family’s farm suffered, they moved to Pittsburgh, and Gibson tried baseball at age 16. He eventually played for a semi-pro team in Pittsburgh and became known for his towering home runs.
He was watching the Homestead Grays play on July 25, 1930, when the catcher injured his hand. Team members called for Gibson, sitting in the stands, to join them. He was such a talented catcher that base runners were more reluctant to steal. He hit the baseball so hard and so far (580 feet once at Yankee Stadium) that he became the second-highest paid player in the Negro Leagues behind Satchel Paige, with both of them entering the National Baseball Hame of Fame.
The Hall estimated that Gibson hit nearly 800 homers in his 17-year career and had a lifetime batting average of .359. Gibson was portrayed in the 1996 TV movie, “Soul of the Game,” by Mykelti Williamson. Blair Underwood played Jackie Robinson, Delroy Lindo portrayed Satchel Paige, and Harvey Williams played “Cat” Mays, the father of the legendary Willie Mays.
Gibson has now been honored with a statue outside the Washington Nationals’ ballpark.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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