Mississippi Today
Two Mississippi Today investigations named Goldsmith Prize semifinalists
Two Mississippi Today investigations — “Committed to Jail” in collaboration ProPublica and “Unfettered Power” in collaboration with The New York Times — were named semifinalists for the coveted Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting.
The two Mississippi Today projects were among 30 semifinalists that judges “deemed to be of extremely high quality and in keeping with the Prize’s criteria for impact on US public policy,” a Feb. 14 press release said.
Mississippi Today was the only local newsroom to earn multiple 2024 Goldsmith semifinalist honors. Mississippi Today journalists previously won the 2023 Goldsmith Prize for “The Backchannel” investigation of the state‘s welfare scandal and the 2020 Goldsmith Prize for an investigation with The Marshall Project of the state’s restitution centers.
“This type of recognition is proof positive of Mississippi Today’s power to bring national audiences to important local news through partnerships with media institutions like ProPublica and The New York Times,” said Adam Ganucheau, Mississippi Today editor-in-chief. “Our journalists are certainly deserving of being continually considered among the very best in the nation.”
“Committed to Jail,” a 2023 Mississippi Today and ProPublica investigation, revealed that Mississippi counties jail hundreds of people without criminal charges every year, for days or weeks at a time, solely because they may need mental health treatment — a practice that has resulted in 14 deaths since 2006 and is unique in scope in the United States.
We found that in just 19 of the state‘s 82 counties, people were jailed without charges more than 2,000 times over four years. We spoke with 14 Mississippians about their experiences in jail and learned that people detained for being sick are generally treated the same as people accused of crimes. We obtained Mississippi Bureau of Investigation reports on jail deaths and pored over lawsuits and news clips to identify 15 people who died after being jailed during this process since 2006, (including the most recent death in January, after the original series was published). And we surveyed behavioral health officials and disability rights advocates in all 50 states to show that Mississippi stands alone.
READ MORE: Mississippi Today and ProPublica’s full series
“Unfettered Power,” a 2023 investigation from the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting at Mississippi Today and The New York Times, revealed how Mississippi sheriffs rule like kings, wielding vast power, exploiting and abusing the very people they are called to protect with no one stopping them.
Sheriffs accused of raping women in their custody without consequences. Beating others they arrested or jailed. Spying on citizens for personal reasons. Deputies using Tasers to torment residents. And a 20-year reign of terror by a “Goon Squad” that barged into homes in the middle of the night, handcuffing or holding people at gunpoint, and torturing them into confessing or providing information.
Mississippi Today and The New York Times produced a series of stories that revealed not just these travesties but also how powerful allies in the criminal justice system – from local prosecutors and judges to the state attorney general and the Justice Department – had repeatedly failed to investigate or prosecute sheriffs for them.
READ MORE: Mississippi Today and The New York Times’ full series
The Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, one of the nation’s most prestigious journalism honors, is housed at the Shorenstein Center at the Harvard Kennedy School. Finalists for the 2024 award will be announced in the coming weeks, and the winner will be announced on April 3.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1875
Nov. 2, 1875
The first Mississippi Plan, which included violence against Black Americans to keep them from voting, resulted in huge victories for white Democrats across the state.
A year earlier, the Republican Party had carried a majority of the votes, and many Black Mississippians had been elected to office. In the wake of those victories, white leagues arose to challenge Republican rule and began to use widespread violence and fraud to recapture control of the state.
Over several days in September 1875, about 50 Black Mississippians were killed along with white supporters, including a school teacher who worked with the Black community in Clinton.
The governor asked President Ulysses Grant to intervene, but he decided against intervening, and the violence and fraud continued. Other Southern states soon copied the Mississippi plan.
John R. Lynch, the last Black congressman for Mississippi until the 1986 election of Mike Espy, wrote: “It was a well-known fact that in 1875 nearly every Democratic club in the State was converted into an armed military company.”
A federal grand jury concluded: “Fraud, intimidation, and violence perpetrated at the last election is without a parallel in the annals of history.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Mississippi Today’s NewsMatch Campaign is Here: Support Journalism that Strengthens Mississippi
High-quality journalism like ours depends on reader support; without it, we simply couldn’t exist. That’s why we’re proud to join the NewsMatch movement, a national initiative aimed at raising $50 million for nonprofit newsrooms that serve communities like ours here in Mississippi, where access to reliable information has often been limited.
In a time when trusted journalists and media sources are disappearing, we believe the stakes couldn’t be higher. Without on-the-ground, trustworthy reporting, civic engagement suffers, accountability falters and corruption often goes unaddressed. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Here at Mississippi Today we act as watchdogs, holding those in power accountable, and as storytellers, giving a platform to voices that have been ignored for too long. And we’re committed to keeping our stories free for everyone because information should be accessible when it’s needed most.
Why NewsMatch and Why Now?
This year’s NewsMatch campaign runs from November 1 through December 31, giving us a special opportunity to make each dollar you give go even further. Through matching funds provided by local foundations like the Maddox Foundation, and national funders like the MacArthur Foundation, the Rural Partner Fund and the Hewlett Foundation, your gift will be matched dollar for dollar up to $1,000. Plus, if 100 new donors join us, we’ll unlock an additional $2,000 in funding, bringing us even closer to our goal. Boiled down: your donation goes four times as far.
Every dollar raised strengthens our ability to serve you with fact-based journalism on issues that impact your everyday life—whether it’s covering local election issues or reporting on decisions affecting schools, safety and economic growth in Mississippi. Your support makes it possible for us to stay rooted in the community, offering nuanced perspectives that help Mississippians understand and engage with what’s happening around them.
Special Event: “Freedom of the Press: Southern Challenges, National Impact”
As part of the campaign, we’re excited to host a special virtual event, “Freedom of the Press: Southern Challenges, National Impact.” Join Deep South Today newsrooms Mississippi Today and Verite News, along with national experts on press freedom, for an in-depth discussion on the unique challenges facing journalists in the Deep South. This one-hour session will explore the critical role local newsrooms play in holding power accountable, highlighting recent restrictions on press freedom such as Louisiana’s “25-foot law,” which affects journalists’ ability to report vital news.
We’ll examine what’s at stake if local newsrooms lose press freedoms and will discuss how you, as members of the public, can help protect it. This event is open to Mississippi Today and Verite News members as a special thank-you for supporting local journalism and standing with us in this mission. Donate today to RSVP!
How You Can Help
Make Your Gift Today
Together, let’s ensure Mississippi has the robust, independent journalism it needs to thrive. Your support fuels our ability to expose the truth, elevate marginalized stories and build a more informed Mississippi.
Thank you for believing in the power of journalism to strengthen the communities we love—not only during election season but year-round. With your help, we’ll keep Mississippi informed, engaged and connected for generations to come.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Hinds County loses fight over control of jail
The Hinds County sheriff and Board of Supervisors have lost an appeal to prevent control of its jail by a court-appointed receiver and an injunction that orders the county to address unconstitutional conditions in the facility.
Two members from a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with decisions by U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves to appoint a receiver to oversee day-to-day jail operations and keep parts of a previous consent decree in place to fix constitutional violations, including a failure to protect detainees from harm.
However, the appeals court called the new injunction “overly broad” in one area and is asking Reeves to reevaluate the scope of the receivership.
The injunction retained provisions relating to sexual assault, but the appeals court found the provisions were tied to general risk of violence at the jail, rather than specific concerns about the Prison Rape Elimination Act. The court reversed those points of the injunction and remanded them to the district court so the provisions can be removed.
The court also found that the receiver should not have authority over budgeting and staff salaries for the Raymond Detention Center, which could be seen as “federal intrusion into RDC’s budget” – especially if the receivership has no end date.
Hinds County Board of Supervisors President Robert Graham was not immediately available for comment Friday. Sheriff Tyree Jones declined to comment because he has not yet read the entire court opinion.
In 2016, the Department of Justice sued Hinds County alleging a pattern or practice of unconstitutional conditions in four of its detention facilities. The county and DOJ entered a consent decree with stipulated changes to make for the jail system, which holds people facing trial.
“But the decree did not resolve the dispute; to the contrary, a yearslong battle ensued in the district court as to whether and to what extent the County was complying with the consent decree,” the appeals court wrote.
This prompted Reeves to hold the county in contempt of court twice in 2022.
The county argued it was doing its best to comply with the consent decree and spending millions to fix the jail. One of the solutions they offered was building a new jail, which is now under construction in Jackson.
The county had a chance to further prove itself during three weeks of hearings held in February 2022. Focuses included the death of seven detainees in 2021 from assaults and suicide and issues with staffing, contraband, old infrastructure and use of force.
Seeing partial compliance by the county, in April 2022 Reeves dismissed the consent decree and issued a new, shorter injunction focused on the jail and removed some provisions from the decree.
But Reeves didn’t see improvement from there. In July 2022, he ordered receivership and wrote that it was needed because of an ongoing risk of unconstitutional harm to jail detainees and staff.
The county pushed back against federal oversight and filed an appeal, arguing that there isn’t sufficient evidence to show that there are current and ongoing constitutional violations at the jail and that the county has acted with deliberate indifference.
Days before the appointed receiver was set to take control of the jail at the beginning of 2023, the 5th Circuit Court ordered a stay to halt that receiver’s work. The new injunction ordered by Reeves was also stayed, and a three-person jail monitoring team that had been in place for years also was ordered to stop work.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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