Mississippi Department of Corrections

The Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) is a state agency of Mississippi that operates prisons. It has its headquarters in Jackson.

In 1843 a penitentiary in four city squares in central Jackson became Mississippi's first state prison; it was located where the Capitol of Mississippi is situated.

The Jackson prison was destroyed during the Civil War, and the state had no prison. For decades, the state conducted convict leasing, leasing prisoners to third parties for their work, which held custody of the inmates and arranged their board. The state made substantial amounts of money from these arrangements, which created an incentive to have more people arrested and sentenced for minor crimes. Increasing the number of crimes for which persons could be arrested, such as vagrancy, resulted in an increased pool to lease out. After December 31, 1894, prisoners sentenced by the State of Mississippi could no longer be hired or leased by third parties.

After ending the convict leasing system, the State of Mississippi began to acquire property to build its own correctional facilities. The state bought the Rankin Farm in Rankin County, 12 miles (19 km) away from Jackson, in 1895, now the location of Central Mississippi Correctional Facility. Afterward the state purchased the Oakley Farm, located in Hinds County, 25 miles (40 km) from Jackson. The state government purchased land in Sunflower County in January 1901, where it developed the Parchman Farm (now Mississippi State Penitentiary).

The Department of Corrections was established in 1976 to oversee the existing Mississippi state prisons. By the end of the century, the state had one of the largest prison systems in the country.

In the 21st century, the state contracted with private prison management companies, who built and operated prisons across the state. Numerous complaints were made about these by prisoners and their families for high rates of violence and abuse, rampant drugs, lack of medical care and other problems. Class action suits were filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the ACLU National Prison Project against two facilities with the most egregious conditions, the former Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility and the East Mississippi Correctional Facility, established for prisoners with serious mental illness. The first case was settled in 2012, ending contracts with GEO Group (which had run both facilities), and requiring the state to set up a facility for youths to be operated according to juvenile justice standards. In addition, the state was prohibited from using solitary confinement for any youthful offender.

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