East Mississippi Correctional Facility
| Location | 10641 Old Hwy 80 W Meridian, Mississippi |
|---|---|
| Status | open |
| Security class | mixed |
| Capacity | 1500 |
| Opened | 1999 |
| Managed by | Management and Training Corporation |
East Mississippi Correctional Facility is a men's prison located in unincorporated Lauderdale County, Mississippi, near Meridian. It is about 90 miles east of the capital, Jackson. Opened in 1999, the special needs prison is intended to provide a high level of care for up to 1500 prisoners with serious mental illness, at all custody levels.
Since the prison opened, it has been one of six prisons in the state operated under contract to the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) by three successive for-profit companies. EMCF was first operated by Cornell Companies, which was acquired by the GEO Group in 2010. In 2012, MDOC forced GEO out of its Mississippi contracts for three facilities, after failure to improve substandard medical treatment and squalor in its facilities, and as a part of its settlement that year of a federal lawsuit for its operation of the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility. MDOC awarded the contract at EMCF and Walnut Grove to Management and Training Corporation (MTC) of Utah, but the complaints continued.
In May 2013, the ACLU and Southern Poverty Law Center filed a class action suit against the state of Mississippi and operators of EMCF on behalf of its prisoners because of the abuses and the failure to improve conditions. In addition, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) continued a separate investigation of the prison system related to PREA audits, and another section investigated corruption among officials and contractors for the Mississippi prison system.
In November 2014, Mississippi Corrections Commissioner Christopher Epps resigned a day before he was indicted by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) on corruption charges for bribery and taking kickbacks. Commissioner since 2002, he was known for reducing the use of solitary confinement in state prisons, and reducing prison populations after supporting passage of a 2009 bill allowing earlier parole for non-violent offenders with a low risk of recidivism. Cecil McCrory, a business man and former state legislator, was indicted for bribing Epps in return for having prison-services contracts steered to him and his clients. He had worked as a consultant for MTC, GEO Group, and Cornell Companies, all of which had operated private prisons in Mississippi. By November 2015 both men had pleaded guilty and were cooperating with law enforcement in the investigation. A third man also pleaded guilty. The trial of another former state lawmaker, Irb Benjamin, was scheduled for January 2016. Numerous other people were convicted in this case and prosecutions were continuing in 2017. In February 2017 the Mississippi Attorney General announced civil suits seeking damages and punitive damages from 15 contractors and several individuals who had contracts during this period awarded under Epps and associated with prison operations. As of early 2017, the state has contracts for only three privately run prisons.
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