Justice Department slams 'unconstitutional conditions' at Mississippi prisons

The Justice Department is accusing the state of Mississippi of violating the constitutional rights of those held in four prisons: the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility, the South Mississippi Correctional Institution and Wilkinson County Correctional Facility. “Our work makes clear that people do not abandon their civil and constitutional rights at the jailhouse door,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division told reporters in a press conference Wednesday. “The unconstitutional conditions in Mississippi’s prisons have existed for far too long,...