The Hinds County jail system is still not meeting all the requirements of a 2016 federal consent decree and settlement even though massive improvements have been made, according to an April court filing.
Of the 92 problem areas, the latest report by the court-appointed independent monitor Elizabeth Simpson has the jail system non-compliant with 30 of them. While that represents nearly one third of the list, it’s still a huge improvement from 2017 when there were 85 areas of non-compliance.
The problems according to the report include a continuing critical shortage of staff, serious maintenance issues that go unaddressed for months and even years and dangerous and unsanitary living conditions for inmates at the Raymond Detention Center. The report says the last condition existed even though the rehabilitated C-Pod was reopened on October 22 after two years of refurbishment with more staffing and new guidelines provided by the National Institute for Corrections. The monitor says that those guidelines have not been properly implemented.
Among the unsanitary and dangerous conditions in Raymond include:
A sprinkler system that has yet to be repaired after it was removed following the 2012 riot that shut down C-Pod and required its refurbishment and repair;
The facility has no fire alarm system;
In A-Pod, the report says inmates live in darkness most of the time because most of the lights do not work. Some damaged cells have been welded shut and become garbage receptacles. County officials told the monitor in the report that they’ve since repaired these issues since the last inspection.
One of the issues pointed out in the periodic report was that the Hinds County Sheriff’s Office isn’t given a line item in its budget to handle routine maintenance in the jail system. These requests, according to the report, are routed through the county administrator’s office. The monitor recommends that the Sheriff’s Office be given a line item for routine maintenance while major projects are directed to the administrator and the Board of Supervisors.
The use of force by corrections officers is also questioned by the monitor, especially when it comes to chemical spray, a non-lethal weapon used by officers. The Sheriff’s Office policy states that spray is to be used as a defensive measure and not as a tool to enforce compliance with the orders of an officer. Three incident reports cited by the monitor’s report indicate that this policy wasn’t followed. Worse yet, their supervisors signed off on their reports and they were exonerated by the internal affairs investigator after the incidents.
One critical problem with the Hinds County jail system is that it is chronically undermanned. According to the monitor’s report, the starting salary of $27,500 provides little incentive for a detention officer to join the Hinds County Sheriff’s Office. With no step raises and a workplace environment known to be dangerous and poorly managed according to the report, the turnover rate is close to 25 percent.
The settlement agreement reached in 2016 requires the county to protect inmates from violence from other prisoners and improper use of force by staff in addition to detainment of prisoners beyond court-ordered release dates and the improper isolation of prisoners.
In January 2020, U.S. Judge Carlton Reeves issued an order to compel county officials to move forward with meeting the stipulations of the settlement agreement.
