Analysis: Views starkly differ on Mississippi prison's state

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A federal judge sat through a monthlong trial last year over conditions at a privately run Mississippi prison, but that wasn't enough for him to make a decision on whether conditions are unconstitutional.

Now Senior U.S. District Judge William Barbour has dueling 80-page briefs to consider as he tries to decide whether East Mississippi Correctional Facility is excessively harsh, as a class action suit by prisoners alleges.

The briefs present starkly different views of conditions at the 1,200-bed prison near Meridian, as well as sharp disagreement over what each side has proved and what the legal standards should be for Barbour to make a decision.

The case, filed in 2013, had been seen as a key clash over the use of private prisons nationwide , with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Poverty Law Center pouring resources into representing prisoners. It twice made the front page of The New York Times with its claims of Dickensian conditions including fires, long stretches in dim solitary cells and untreated medical conditions in a place where a majority of prisoners have been diagnosed with mental illness.

Barbour ordered the new briefs after touring the prison late in the trial and concluding some conditions have improved. He asked both sides to discuss what conditions are like now, as opposed to when the suit was filed.

The plaintiffs still allege that East Mississippi violates the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment in seven different categories. That includes poor health care and mental health care, an overreliance on solitary confinement and use of force by guards, and a failure to keep prisoners adequately housed and fed and safe from assaults.

For example, when it comes to health care, the plaintiffs say each of six prisoners who died in 2018 had...