Court monitor testifies gangs control who eats at jail in Mississippi

A court monitor in Mississippi testified that gangs at a county jail have control over whether inmates receive meals, NBC affiliate WLBT reported. 

In a federal court hearing on Tuesday, Elizabeth Simpson, the court monitor tasked with ensuring the county complies with its jail consent decree, said that due to staffing shortages at Hinds County’s Raymond Detention Center, gangs or “inmate committees” enforce their own rules at the jail, including whether some inmates get to eat. 

Some inmates, including those in mental health units, experienced substantial weight loss as a result of the alleged gang system. 

Simpson also said inmate committees determined whether certain detainees could remain in the jail’s housing units as well, according to the NBC affiliate.

“The detainees who control the unit decide who can be there and who can’t. If they don’t want (a detainee) there, they will set up assaults until they leave,” Simpson said in court. 

The evidentiary hearing will determine whether the prison is taken over by the federal government, according to WLBT. 

Simpson also testified that many inmates are being housed at the jail longer than their required sentence due to poor record-keeping, adding one inmate remained at the jail for too long because an employee used the wrong screen on a computer program to calculate his release date, the local outlet reported. 

“They don’t have a tracking system for people to be released,” Simpson said, according to WLBT. “They just have to remember who is there on sentence.”

The news comes after U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves issued a civil contempt earlier, arguing that officials at the prison neglected to fix ongoing issues at the prison. 

According to The Associated Press, the Justice Department sued Hinds County in 2016 after a report found unconstitutional conditions at the jail including low staffing numbers, violence between detainees and staff and problems with treatment of juveniles and suicidal detainees.