Doctor calls Parchman conditions ‘deplorable’

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Living conditions in the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman are “are sub-human and deplorable in a civilized society,” according to a physician who has evaluated the prison on behalf of inmates who are suing the state.

Dr. Marc Stern specializes in correctional health care and has evaluated dozens of jails, prisons and immigration detention facilities in the United States.

Conditions at Parchman “are the worst conditions I have observed in any U.S. jail, prison or immigration detention facility in my 20 years working in this field,” Stern wrote in papers that attorneys filed June 8 in federal court.

“To say that the Mississippi Department of Corrections warehouses human beings at Parchman would be insulting to proper warehouses,” wrote Stern, who is a professor at the University of Washington School of Public Health and was previously the lead physician for the Washington State Department of Corrections.

As of Friday, attorneys for the state of Mississippi had not yet responded to the plaintiffs’ June 8 filing. But the state’s new corrections commissioner, Burl Cain, told lawmakers Tuesday: “We’re going to fix Parchman.”

The inmates’ lawsuit was filed in January, after outbursts of violence in multiple Mississippi prisons left some inmates dead and others injured. Attorneys are being paid by entertainment mogul Jay-z, rapper Yo Gotti and Team Roc, the philanthropic arm of Jay-z’s Roc Nation.

The lawsuit was filed weeks before the U.S. Justice Department

announced in February that it is investigating Mississippi’s prison system. The civil suit and the federal investigation are separate from each other and are moving forward on parallel tracks.

The inmates’ lawsuit is asking a federal judge to mandate that the state improve living conditions in Parchman, where state Health Department inspections have previously shown longstanding problems with clogged toilets, broken windows and moldy showers.

The lawsuit lists 33 inmates as plaintiffs, though it seeks improvements for all inmates in Parchman. In the June 8 filing, attorney Marcy B. Croft wrote that 24 of the 33 plaintiffs have been transferred out of Parchman since the suit was filed.

“Violence is a part of everyday