The Hinds County Board of Supervisors is asking U.S. Judge Carlton Reeves to terminate the consent decree governing the Hinds County jail system.
The board made the request in a filing from January 21. Attorneys for the county argue that the county has satisfied its burden and that continued enforcement of the consent decree raises serious federalism concerns as the federal government usurps local government authority.
Attorneys for the U.S. Department of Justice and Hinds County will appear before Reeves in an evidentiary hearing scheduled for the week of February 14. This hearing was rescheduled from January 24.
In their brief, attorneys for the county reiterated their arguments from December 15 that the county is making great progress with a new administrator (recommended by the DOJ) running the operations at the Raymond Detention Center.
The county also said that there has been one death due to violence since the new administrator took charge of the jail's operations. The Board of Supervisors have approved a 5 percent pay hike for corrections officers, which is now a rate higher than the starting salary for an officer with the Mississippi Department of Corrections.
Attorneys for the county also said in their brief that a new command staff at the RDC are all enrolled in training to obtain national certification as jail managers, the county has hired a new health services administrator and full-time mental health nurse practitioner, upgrades to the jail are ongoing and new policies involving suicide prevention, mental health and violence (both prisoner on prisoner and staff on prisoner) have been enacted by the command staff.
The DOJ sued the county for inhumane conditions at the Raymond Detention Center in 2015 and a settlement was reached in 2016 where the county agreed to improve conditions at the jail.
In May 2015, a list of findings on the Raymond facility were released by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. The DOJ found that the county wasn’t doing enough to protect inmates from violence from other prisoners, was allowing the improper use of force by staff, detaining inmates beyond court-ordered release dates and improperly housing and isolating prisoners.
The U.S. District Court of Southern Mississippi is using court-appointed monitors to supervise the county’s progress on fixing issues with the jail. Reeves issued an order in January 2020 demanding the county meet the requirements of the settlement.
Reeves issued an order on November 23 that mandated the county explain to him why the federal government shouldn’t completely take over operation of the Raymond Detention Center.
In a filing from December 15, attorneys for the county asked Reeves for a deadline of July 1 to show more progress on meeting the requirements of the consent decree.
Reeves’ order followed an October 28 report by the independent monitor that decried six deaths at the jail, saying that they represented a “serious lack of compliance” with the 2016 court order issued by Reeves.
