Category: Uncategorized

Mississippi’s Parchman Prison Farm Needs to be Shut Down

On By Gregory L. RichardIn Prison Abuse, Prison Conditions, Prison Farms, Prison Reform, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I’ve studied over a century of brutality at this prison farm in Sunflower County. I’ve realized that the only way this place will be made constitutional is to shut it down and start over. The reforms began by the federal courts in the 1970s are a memory of the past, as the state of Mississippi continues to neglect its prisons.

[The] Prison has always been violent,” he said. “It’s like walking into a zone with a bunch of time bombs waiting to explode. . . . If you’re being treated like you’re nothing, like you’re a dog, an animal, and you’re not getting the right amount of food, water, you don’t have no way to use the restroom, the frustration constantly builds.

Same story, different era.

Thanks, Liliana Segura, “People Keep Dying in Mississippi Prisons but the Governor Wants to Move On.”

First Maine inmate to enroll in graduate school conducts groundbreaking research in prison

On By Gregory L. RichardIn Prisoner Education, UncategorizedLeave a comment

His thesis work is groundbreaking in that it may be the first instance of institutional-review-board-approved, inmate-on-inmate research. Brown will be interviewing inmates and looking for themes in the stories they tell about themselves in an attempt to understand the impact of stereotype, stigma, shame and humiliation on prisoner self-narratives and to determine whether these are barriers to reintegration into society.

Hopefully, this trend continues. Who better to tell the outside world about prison culture than prisoners themselves? 

Thanks, Portland Phoenix.