We Investigated Killings Inside Mississippi Prisons. Here’s What We Found.

This text is a part of a collaborative investigation into Mississippi’s Lethal Prisons.

An investigation by The Marshall Challenge – Jackson and native reporting companions discovered that understaffing and gang violence in Mississippi’s prisons led to dozens of incarcerated individuals being killed within the final 10 years. Their killers seldom face penalties, and their households are sometimes left with out solutions.

Of the almost 50 homicides we recognized, simply eight killers have been convicted.

Over the course of a 12 months, reporters from Mississippi As we speak, Clarion Ledger, Hattiesburg American and The Mississippi Hyperlink reviewed hundreds of pages of court docket information, incident experiences, and federal and state authorities dying information. We interviewed households who’ve misplaced family members behind bars, previously incarcerated individuals, former guards, attorneys and corrections consultants.

Following our investigation, Mississippi Division of Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain stated in October 2025 that the division would overview unprosecuted homicides and deaths dominated to be of undetermined causes.

But three months later, there have been no further indictments or convictions in open murder circumstances.

The 2026 legislative session started Jan. 6. To this point, Home Corrections Chair Rep. Becky Currie said that she plans to introduce laws to advance jail well being care reform. No laws addressing jail violence, understaffing or homicides has been launched.

Listed here are 5 key factors from our investigation — and what the federal authorities and different states have finished to stem their very own jail violence:

1. Jail homicides should not remoted incidents. They’re the results of long-documented failures of the state to guard these in its custody.

Most of the violent, preventable deaths we investigated confirmed the identical elements: Power understaffing, lax oversight and gang management. These points have been documented for many years in civil lawsuits and in investigations by the U.S. Division of Justice.

2. The killings haven’t stopped.

After the tales have been revealed in September, our reporting workforce recognized three further males who have been killed behind bars in 2025. At East Mississippi Correctional Facility in Meridian, 41-year-old Aaron Harrison was killed in July. Based on an incident report, Harrison was receiving medical remedy after showing pale and yellow. A nurse practitioner noticed bruising on his decrease stomach. The incident report said that Harrison’s reason for dying was unknown, however the state medical expert later decided his dying to be a murder attributable to blunt pressure trauma.

Three months later, 23-year-old Cameron Roby succumbed to accidents following an assault on the identical facility. Additionally in October, 29-year-old Donald Jones was overwhelmed to dying by his cellmate at Wilkinson County Correctional Facility, in accordance with jail incident experiences. Nobody has been criminally charged in reference to any of those deaths.

3. The chief drawback is jail understaffing.

A lot of the documented killings have been beatings or stabbings that occurred when employees have been both absent, outnumbered or poorly educated to deal with the violence.

From 2015 by means of 2025, we found a number of accounts of a sufferer being overwhelmed, killed and never discovered till hours later. In February 2025, officers at Wilkinson County Correctional Facility obtained a name that an incarcerated individual had died within the jail. They discovered Jonathan Havard strangled to dying in his cell, in accordance with an incident report.

In December 2021, Ronnie Graham was overwhelmed within the early hours of the morning. He spent almost 5 hours passing out and in of consciousness earlier than being discovered foaming on the mouth, in accordance with jail incident experiences and a Justice Division investigation. He died shortly after.

When there may be not sufficient employees in a jail, features like safety counts are uncared for. Gangs and violent people make the most of these safety gaps.

Deputy Corrections Commissioner Nathan Blevins instructed lawmakers in September that about 30% of the funded corrections officer positions have been vacant.

“No jail can function safely with that sort of staffing,” stated David Fathi, director of the ACLU Nationwide Jail Challenge.

4. Investigations into jail killings are shrouded in secrecy.

Households are sometimes left with out solutions. After they did get solutions, they usually discovered particulars about their family members’ deaths by means of a whisper community of incarcerated individuals, insiders, advocates, and, in some circumstances, from journalists. Members of the family report little communication with state jail officers.

Mississippi’s public information regulation additionally makes it troublesome to seek out out what occurred. The Mississippi Public Information Act exempts regulation enforcement investigative paperwork. It’s as much as the regulation enforcement company — on this case, the Division of Corrections — to resolve if a doc is investigative. MDOC officers used this exemption broadly all through our investigation, however reporters have been capable of receive data by means of different sources.

5. Official accountability is elusive. The federal authorities and different states enacted extra oversight.

Mississippi jail dying investigations are dealt with internally. The corrections division finally decides whether or not to cross its investigation to the native district legal professional’s workplace for prosecution.

A person who kills one other incarcerated individual can both be held accountable by means of a legal cost or an inside jail write-up referred to as a rule violation report. Typically, they obtain neither. Of the 42 homicides examined in our investigation, simply eight circumstances led to suspects pleading responsible in legal court docket. A couple of obtained a rule violation that led to a lack of privileges, together with the usage of the telephone and shopping for objects from the commissary.

Outdoors of the jail system, there may be scant oversight to carry corrections officers accountable for misconduct, root out corruption and examine allegations of abuse. In some states, there are unbiased oversight our bodies or officers who deal with these duties.

For instance, Virginia created an ombudsman’s workplace to examine its prisons and examine complaints. The workplace obtained greater than 500 complaints from June by means of August final 12 months, which included extreme pressure, extended isolation and delayed medical care.

New York’s prisons are monitored by an unbiased company. The Correctional Affiliation of New York conducts inspections and interviews with incarcerated individuals and jail employees. The group publishes experiences and maintains a public dashboard with knowledge on staffing, deaths, suicide makes an attempt and extra.

In 2024, the Federal Jail Oversight Act was enacted, creating an ombudsman workplace and granting the Justice Division’s inspector basic workplace authority to examine federal prisons. The laws comes after investigations discovered rampant sexual abuse, preventable deaths and neglect in federal prisons.

In Mississippi, the Legislature established a Corrections and Legal Justice Oversight Job Drive in 2014, but it surely has just about no authority, stated André de Gruy, the state public defender and a process pressure member. The duty pressure gives legal justice coverage suggestions to the Legislature which are centered on decreasing the jail inhabitants.

De Gruy stated he typically receives calls from former shoppers and their members of the family in regards to the risks in jail.

“Not all people has that capacity to name and have a connection to any person who can really look into one thing, and put (it) on the commissioner’s radar,” he stated.

He proposed the creation of an ombudsman’s workplace for Mississippi, much like these for Virginia and federal prisons.

Victims’ households in Mississippi have additionally sued the prisons. Nonetheless, such circumstances are troublesome to win, civil rights attorneys stated. There are authorized protections like certified immunity, which may protect officers from being held liable for the deaths.