Marshall County Correctional Facility

Last updated
Marshall County Correctional Center
Marshall County Correctional Facility
Location833 West Street
Holly Springs, Mississippi
Coordinates 34°47′42″N89°26′17″W / 34.795°N 89.438°W / 34.795; -89.438 Coordinates: 34°47′42″N89°26′17″W / 34.795°N 89.438°W / 34.795; -89.438
StatusOpen
Security classMinimum and medium
Capacity1,076
Opened1996
Managed by[MDOC]

Marshall County Correctional Center (MCCF) is a for-profit prison in Holly Springs, Marshall County, Mississippi, managed by Management and Training Corporation (MTC) on behalf of the Mississippi Department of Corrections. [1] [2]

Contents

The minimum/medium-security prison facility has an authorized capacity of 1,076 and is on 17 acres (6.9 ha) of enclosed area. The prison property has a total of 47 acres (19 ha). [3] The Marshall County Correctional Facility is one of three private prisons operated on behalf of the state as of March 2017.

In November 2014, Mississippi Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps resigned a day before he was indicted by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) on corruption charges for bribery and taking kickbacks. Commissioner since 2002, he was known for reducing the use of solitary confinement in state prisons, and reducing prison populations after supporting passage of a 2009 bill allowing earlier parole for non-violent offenders with a low risk of recidivism. Cecil McCrory, a business man and former state legislator, was indicted for bribing Epps in return for having prison-services contracts steered to him and his clients. He had worked as a consultant for MTC, GEO Group, and Cornell Companies, which had previously operated private prisons in Mississippi. By November 2015 both men had pleaded guilty and were cooperating with law enforcement in the investigation. A third co-conspirator, former lawmaker Irb Benjamin, also joined the lengthening list of those pleading out to reduce the consequences of their crimes. [4] [5] [6] Benjamin pleaded guilty to federal charges on October 18, 2016. [7] He faced 10 years in prison, plus a fine of up to a quarter-million dollars. [8] Judge Henry Travillion Wingate sentenced him to 70 months in prison, fined him $100,000 and ordered him to forfeit $260,782. Benjamin, who said he was "pressured" by Epps, estimated that he paid the commissioner between $180,000 and $225,000 in cash bribes to secure support for the regional jails. His plea also covered bribes paid for drug and alcohol rehab programs which his company ran under contract to the state. LaMarca told Wingate, "it's just a matter of time" until others whom Benjamin informed upon were indicted. [6] Benjamin is being held at the minimum security Federal Correctional Institution, Forrest City, Arkansas, with an anticipated release date of June 13, 2022. [9]

Numerous other people have been convicted in this case and prosecutions were continuing in 2017. In February, 2017, Jim Hood, the Mississippi Attorney General announced civil suits seeking damages and punitive damages from 15 contractors and several individuals associated with prison operations.

Accreditations

The prison was accredited by the American Correctional Association in January 1998, June 2000, September 2003, January 2007, January 2010, and March 2014. [1]

Operation contracts

This facility has been operated by several for-profit prison management companies on behalf of the state. Cornell Companies was the first, running the prison into 2010, when it was acquired in a merger with GEO Group. GEO took over its contracts for three private prisons in Mississippi. The other two were Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility and East Mississippi Correctional Facility. In addition, the state had contracts with Corrections Corporation of America for the Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility and the Wilkinson County Correctional Facility.

In 2010 a class action suit was filed by the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center against GEO Group and the Mississippi Department of Corrections for mistreatment of prisoners and failure of operation of the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility. As a result of the settlement of this suit, the state forced out GEO Group and rebid to acquire a new management company.

At the time, Commissioner Chris Epps, MDOC, said that the department believed it would be advantageous for the state to solicit a combined bid for all three prisons for which contracts were being offered. It awarded a contract to Management and Training Corporation of Utah for all three private facilities. The public was not informed of the financial specifics of the contracts. [10] In 2013 MTC was also awarded a contract for Wilkinson County Correctional Facility.

Epps resigned in November 2014 and pleaded guilty in February 2015 to charges related to Operation Mississippi Hustle, a major corruption investigation by the FBI. He is estimated to have been paid $1.47 million in bribes and kickbacks related to contracts which he had steered to certain prison management and other related companies during the previous decade. He cooperated with law enforcement in a continuing investigation in which several people have pleaded guilty and others have been convicted. Epps is due to be sentenced in May 2017.

In the summer of 2016, the state closed the Walnut Grove facility, which had been converted to serve adults only as part of the 2012 settlement. MTC was awarded a new 10-year contract by MDOC, effective August 2016, for management of Marshall County Correctional Facility, East Mississippi Correctional Facility, and Wilkinson County Correctional Facility.

Incidents

On March 27, 2001, 24-year-old Daniel Underwood was attacked by another inmate at the MCCF. The autopsy showed he had died of head injuries, apparently suffered during a beating by other prisoners. Another inmate apparently assisted in the attack by obscuring the view of security personnel. The prison was managed by Wackenhut Corrections Corporation. Warden E.L. Sparkman declined to discuss the circumstances, referring questions to the Corrections Department. [11]

In 2009, the Mississippi Supreme Court reinstated a 2006 lawsuit filed pro se by ex-inmate Dennis Dobbs over conditions at the MCCF. He complained of a lack of air conditioning, ventilation and concerns regarding fire safety including an absence of sprinklers. The Supreme Court said that a Marshall County judge erred in dismissing the lawsuit. The justices said the Chancery court judge erroneously considered Dennis Dobbs' lawsuit as an appeal of his assault conviction prosecuted in another county. The Supreme Court said Dobbs' tort, for what he referred to as "inhumane" conditions at the Marshall County prison warranted a hearing. [12]

In March 2015, corrections officials conducted a search at the MCCF and the state's three other for-profit prisons, seizing weapons (including 36 homemade knives), cell phones, and other prohibited materials at MCCF. "We believe there were some staff complicit in bringing in contraband," Corrections Commissioner Marshall Fisher said, noting one had already resigned, and that four additional staff members were suspected of complicity.

Then U.S. Attorney Brad Pigott said the quantities of weapons seized leads him to believe that contraband weapons are more common at for-profit prisons. "This makes clear that prisons operated by corporations are much more dangerous places to work." Private prisons are using money "which could have gone into hiring enough guards to find and remove knives from prisoners, and they are sending those tax dollars instead to their corporate headquarters," he continued. According to Issa Arnita, MTC's spokesperson, "Employees caught attempting to bring contraband into our facilities will not only be terminated but will be criminally prosecuted to the highest extent of the law." [13]

On November 22, 2016, inmate Oscar Pirtle was killed in an altercation with another inmate. [14]

On April 23, 2019, after a guard was assaulted by an inmate in a housing units, he was taken by ambulance and hospitalized, said MTC spokesperson Issa Arnita. The Marshall County Sheriff reported that a fire broke out during the incident. Arnita did not mention the fire nor return requests for further comment. On April 25, the Clarion Ledger newspaper received five videos plus two photos taken by a Marshall County inmate's phone. They showed a smoke-filled prison with soot high on the walls. According to the inmate, "If not for the fire sprinkler going off, I can assure you every inmate on the zone of delta 4 in Marshall county correctional facility would have died!" In the videos, smoke fills the prison and reached the cell block ceiling. It was reported that the facility had been on lockdown for four months. [15]

Related Research Articles

American Correctional Association

The American Correctional Association is a private, non-profit, non-governmental trade association and accrediting body for the corrections industry, the oldest and largest such association in the world. The organization was founded in 1870 and has a significant place in the history of prison reform in the U.S.

Mississippi Department of Corrections State agency that operates prisons

The Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) is a state agency of Mississippi that operates prisons. It has its headquarters in Jackson. As of 2020 Burl Cain is the commissioner.

Cornell Companies

Cornell Companies (NYSE:CRN) was an American corporation that operated correctional facilities, contracting them to state and local governments. The company's headquarters were located in Houston, Texas. On August 12, 2010, Cornell was acquired by the GEO Group.

GEO Group American institutional facilities company

The GEO Group, Inc. (GEO) is a publicly traded C corporation that invests in private prisons and mental health facilities in North America, Australia, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. Headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida, the company's facilities include illegal immigration detention centers, minimum security detention centers, and mental-health and residential-treatment facilities. It also operates government-owned facilities pursuant to management contracts. As of December 31, 2021, the company managed and/or owned 86,000 beds at 106 facilities. In 2019, agencies of the federal government of the United States generated 53% of the company's revenues. Up until 2021 the company was designated as a real estate investment trust, at which time the board of directors elected to reclassify as a C corporation under the stated goal of reducing the company's debt.

Burl Cain American penologist

Nathan Burl Cain is the commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Corrections and the former warden at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola in West Feliciana Parish, north of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He worked there for twenty-one years, from January 1995 until his resignation in 2016.

Global Tel Link Corrections phone system provider

Global Tel Link (GTL), formerly known as Global Telcoin, Inc. and Global Tel*Link Corporation, is a Reston, Virginia–based telecommunications company, founded in 1989, that provides Inmate Calling Service (ICS) through "integrated information technology solutions" for correctional facilities which includes inmates payment and deposit, facility management, and "visitation solutions". The company's CEO is Deb Alderson. In 2020, GTL delivered 4.1 billion call minutes to incarcerated individuals and their families.

Arizona State Prison – Kingman is a privately run minimum/medium-security prison designed to hold 3500 prisoners. It is located in unincorporated Mohave County, Arizona, in Golden Valley. When the idea of the prison was being sold to the residents of Golden Valley it was promised that it would be a prison only for Dui offenders. It was operated by the Management and Training Corporation under contract to the Arizona Department of Corrections until August 2015. MTC had been criticized for allowing the homicidal escape of three violent prisoners in 2010. The state began seeking an alternate provider after it found MTC failed to control riots on July 1, 2 and 4, at Kingman, in July 2015.

Management & Training Corporation or MTC is a contractor that manages private prisons and United States Job Corps centers, based in Centerville, Utah. MTC's core businesses are corrections, education and training, MTC medical, and economic & social development. MTC operates 21 correctional facilities in eight states. MTC also operates or partners in operating 22 of the 119 Job Corps centers across the country. They also operate in Great Britain, under the name MTCNovo.

On July 30, 2010, three inmates escaped from the Kingman Arizona State Prison, operated as a for-profit medium-security prison in Golden Valley by Utah's Management and Training Corporation. It was owned by the Mohave County Industrial Development Authority. A female accomplice assisted the escape. Over the next three weeks, local law enforcement captured prisoners Daniel Renwick in Colorado; Tracy Province in Wyoming; and finally, with the U.S. Marshals, John McCluskey in Arizona, along with the trio's accomplice Casslyn Welch.

Wexford Health Sources, Inc. is a healthcare services company headquartered in Foster Plaza Two in Green Tree, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh.

Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility

Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility (TCCF) is a private prison for men, authorized by the Tallahatchie County Correctional Authority and operated by CoreCivic, formerly the Corrections Corporation of America on behalf of the Mississippi Department of Corrections. The maximum-security facility is located in unincorporated Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, near Tutwiler in the Mississippi Delta. Since its opening with 352 prisoners, the prison has expanded capacity nearly ninefold, holding 2672 inmates by October 2008. It has housed inmates from Wisconsin, Colorado, Hawaii, Wyoming, Vermont, and California, in addition to prisoners from Louisiana and Mississippi. In 2010 the facility served as a county jail and also housed more than 1,000 prisoners from California. Since 2013, it has not held Mississippi state prisoners.

East Mississippi Correctional Facility is a men's prison located in unincorporated Lauderdale County, Mississippi, near Meridian. It is about 90 miles east of the capital, Jackson. Opened in 1999, the special needs prison is intended to provide a high level of care for up to 1500 prisoners with serious mental illness, at all custody levels.

The Walnut Grove Correctional Facility, formerly the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility (WGYCF), was operated as a for-profit state-owned prison in Walnut Grove, Mississippi from 1996 to 2016. Constructed beginning in 1990, it was expanded in 2001 and later, holding male youth offenders. It had an eventual capacity of 1,469 prisoners, making it the largest juvenile facility in the country. Contracts for the facility's operations and services were among those investigated by the FBI in its lengthy investigation of state corruption known as Operation Mississippi Hustle.

Community Education Centers, Inc. abbreviated CEC was a private corrections company based in West Caldwell, New Jersey and operated residential reentry facilities, jails, and in-prison drug treatment programs in seventeen American states and in Bermuda.

Bennett Malone was an American politician in the state of Mississippi.

Christopher B. Epps is a Federal inmate and a former commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) and career employee in the state criminal justice system; he started his career as a teacher. Appointed as Commissioner in 2002 and serving until 2014, he served under three governors and was the agency's longest-serving commissioner its history. Epps came up within the department as a 32-year career employee.

Wilkinson County Correctional Center (WCCC) is a private prison in unincorporated Wilkinson County, Mississippi, managed since July 2013 by Management and Training Corporation (MTC) on a five-year contract with the Mississippi Department of Corrections.

The North Central Correctional Institution is a minimum- and medium-security prison for men located in Marion, Marion County, Ohio, operated by Management and Training Corporation under contract with the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

Operation Mississippi Hustle was a federal investigation initiated in 2014 by the United States Attorney and prosecuted in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi. It examined the relationship between officials of the Mississippi Department of Corrections and various for-profit prison contractors and subcontractors, who have provided services to the five private prisons in the state. One, Walnut Grove, closed in September 2016 but has since reopened.

Cecil McCrory is a former Mississippi state legislator, justice court judge, Rankin County school board president and businessman. His indictment was made public in November 2014 for corruption related to his dealings with prison industry contractors. It was later revealed that he had become an informant in the investigation, along with his partner in crime, ex-Commissioner of Corrections in Mississippi, Chris Epps. Epps was sentenced to 235 months and McCrory to 102 months in federal prison. Both men were fined and ordered to pay restitution. McCrory is being held at the Federal Correctional Institution, Talladega, Alabama, with a scheduled release date of April 24, 2025.

References

  1. 1 2 Five Private Prisons Archived 2015-04-25 at the Wayback Machine , Mississippi Department of Corrections. Retrieved 24 September 2016.
  2. ↑ Archive, Mississippi Department of Corrections. Retrieved September 24, 2016.
  3. ↑ Private Prisons Archived 2016-09-26 at the Wayback Machine , Mississippi Department of Corrections. Retrieved 24 September 2016.
  4. ↑ pays ex-lawmaker thousands for jail work, Washington Times , Emily Wagster Pettus (AP), November 25, 2014. Retrieved March 5, 2017.
  5. ↑ Something to prove Archived 2017-03-06 at the Wayback Machine , "Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal , Ashley Elkins, July 22, 1999. Retrieved 5 August 2018.
  6. 1 2 Ex-lawmaker Irb Benjamin gets six years in bribery scandal Archived 2022-07-23 at the Wayback Machine , The Clarion-Ledger , Jeff Amy (AP), March 3, 2017. Retrieved 5 August 2018
  7. ↑ Former state senator to plead guilty in Epps bribery case Archived 2018-07-10 at the Wayback Machine , Mississippi Today , Patsy R. Brumfield, October 3, 2016. Retrieved 5 August 2018.
  8. ↑ Irb Benjamin pleads guilty in Epps bribery case Archived 2018-07-11 at the Wayback Machine , Mississippi Today , R.L. Nave, October 18, 2016. Retrieved 5 August 2018.
  9. ↑ Inmate Locator Archived 2019-12-10 at the Wayback Machine , Federal Bureau of Prisons . Retrieved August 5, 2018.
  10. ↑ "Utah company wins contract to run three state prisons" Archived 2016-09-25 at the Wayback Machine , Mississippi Business Journal , Megan Wright, June 7, 2012. Retrieved 24 September 2016.
  11. ↑ Mississippi private prison inmate dies of head injuries Archived 2008-08-27 at the Wayback Machine , Associated Press, April 10, 2001. Retrieved 24 September 2016.
  12. ↑ Mississippi Supreme Court Holds Substance, Not Label, of Prisoner Petitions Governs Archived 2016-09-25 at the Wayback Machine , Prison Legal News , January 15, 2011. 24 September 2016.
  13. ↑ Weapons seized in prison shakedowns Archived 2022-07-23 at the Wayback Machine , Clarion Ledger , Jerry Mitchell, Mar 24, 2015. Retrieved 24 September 2016.
  14. ↑ "Private prison locked down following fight, inmate death" Archived 2016-11-24 at the Wayback Machine , Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal , William Moore, November 23, 2016. Retrieved 23 November 2016.
  15. ↑ Treated like 'animals': Lockdown at prison over guard shortage entering 4th month Archived 2022-07-23 at the Wayback Machine , Clarion Ledger, Jimmie E. Gates, April 30, 2019. Retrieved May 8, 2019.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.