Series 2676: Prison and Community Work Center Inspection Files. 1972-2009.
Health, Dept. of (RG 51)

Series 2676: Prison and Community Work Center Inspection Files. 1972-2009.
Health, Dept. of (RG 51)

      Nutrition, sanitation, fire marshal's, and building and grounds inspection reports for jails and correctional institutions in Mississippi, including the state penitentiary, regional facilities, county jails, community work centers, restitution centers, and some youth detention facilities. The bulk of the records are county and city jail nutrition and sanitation reports filed by the State Department of Health after each inspection. Records consist mainly of reports and correspondence; however, box 30347 contains courtroom transcripts, Mississippi House Bills, court orders, motions, and depositions pertaining to the Gates v. Collier decision, which desegregated and introduced federal oversight to the state penitentiary and prison system. Records are grouped by facility type (county jail, community work center, State Penitentiary, etc.), and alphabetically by facility location within each type.

      Regular nutrition, sanitation, fire safety and building ad grounds inspections of Mississippi's jails were first required by court order following the 1974 Gates v. Collier decision of the federal 5th Circuit Court. In response to a lawsuit brought by inmates of the state penitentiary (known colloquially as Parchman) against prison administrators, the court, led by Judge William F. Keady, found the conditions of incarceration at Parchman to be unconstitutional and in direct violation of the 8th Amendment (protection from cruel and unusual punishment) and the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment. Keady ordered that Parchman's housing units be desegregated, the trusty system for guarding prisoners be discontinued, the abuse of solitary confinement as a punishment and censorship of inmates' mail cease, and that derelict housing, sewage and kitchen facilities be renovated and brought into compliance with existing state health and sanitation standards. To this end, the court ordered quarterly inspections of Parchman by the Health Department's Sanitation Division beginning in 1978, although sporadic sanitation inspections had been undertaken as early as 1972. State legislation passed in the same year required quarterly sanitation, fire safety and building and grounds inspections of all facilities housing state prisoners, and this legislation enabled inspections to continue when court-ordered inspections were discontinued in 1982.