Mississippi State Penitentiary
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Mississippi State Penitentiary, also known as Parchman Farm, is the oldest prison and the only maximum security prison for men in the state of Mississippi, USA. It is located on 18,000 acres (73 km²) in Parchman, Mississippi, and was built in 1901. It has beds for 4,840 inmates. Inmates work on the prison farm (formerly plantation) and in manufacturing workshops.
It holds male offenders classified at all custody levels — A and B custody (minimum and medium security) and C and D custody (maximum security). It also houses death row — all male offenders sentenced to death in Mississippi are held here.[1]
Parchman does not house female offenders - Central Mississippi Correctional Facility, also the location of the female death row, is the only state prison in Mississippi to do so.[2]
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[edit] History
In 1895-1906 it was transformed to fit the state's penal plantation system.
Vernon Presley, father of Elvis Presley, was convicted of forgery when Elvis was three and received a three-year sentence at Parchman.[3] The first photo of Elvis was taken at the prison in 1938 when, as a 3-year-old, he and his mother Gladys Presley came to visit his father. The photo shows Vernon, Elvis, and Gladys together against a wall inside the prison.
In the spring of 1961, Freedom Riders (civil rights activists) came to the American South to test the desegregation of public facilities. By the end of June, 163 Freedom Riders had been convicted in Jackson, Mississippi and many were jailed in Parchman.
In 1970 the civil rights lawyer Roy Haber began taking statements from inmates, which eventually ran to fifty pages of details of murders, rapes, beatings and other abuses suffered by the inmates in Parchman from 1969 to 1971. Four Parchman inmates brought a suit against the prison superintendent in federal district court in 1972, alleging their civil rights under the United States Constitution were being violated by the infliction of cruel and unusual punishment.[4] In the case, Gates v. Collier, federal judge William C. Keady found that Parchman Farm violated the Constitution and was an affront to 'modern standards of decency'. Among other reforms, the accommodation was made fit for human habitation and the trusty system (where lifers were armed with rifles and set to guard other inmates) was abolished.[5][6]
The 1987 BBC Television landmark documentary Fourteen Days in May, which followed the last two weeks of the life of Edward Earl Johnson up until just a few minutes before his execution in the prison's gas chamber, was filmed here.
[edit] In culture
The prison is the subject of a number of blues songs, most notably "Parchman Farm" by Bukka White.
In William Faulkner's book Old Man, which was also published as part of the book The Wild Palms, the Tall and Fat Convicts were sent from Parchman to rescue folks from the 1927 flood.
In Faulkner's The Mansion, Mink Snopes was imprisoned in Parchman.
In August Wilson's The Piano Lesson, the characters Boy Willie, Lymon, Doaker, and Wining Boy all served time at Parchman.
The Chamber, a best-selling novel by John Grisham, is set at Parchman.[7] Many of Grisham's other novels make reference to Parchman.
The Chamber, a movie based on the novel of the same name, was filmed at and is set in the penitentiary.[8][9] The movie stars Gene Hackman and Chris O'Donnell. Bo Jackson has a cameo as a prison guard.[10]
[edit] Quotation
- Oh listen you men, I don't mean no harm
- If you wanna do good, you better stay off old Parchman Farm
- We got to work in the mornin', just at dawn of day
- Just at the settin' of the sun, that's when the work is done
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- Bukka White, "Parchman Farm Blues"
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[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Hopper, Columbus B. (September 1962). "The Conjugal Visit at Mississippi State Penitentiary". The Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police Science 53 (3): 340–343. doi:.
- Oshinsky, David M.: Worse Than Slavery: Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice. Free Press, 1997.
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ "Mississippi State Penitentiary (Parchman) prison profile". http://www.prisontalk.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-64319.html. Retrieved on 2006-08-27.
- ^ http://www.mdoc.state.ms.us/division_of_institutions%20State%20Prisons.htm
- ^ "Elvis Presley". history-of-rock.com. http://www.history-of-rock.com/elvis_presley.htm. Retrieved on 2006-08-27.
- ^ "ACLU Parchman Prison". http://www.dsl.psu.edu/civilrights/chapter1.html. Retrieved on 2006-08-29.
- ^ "Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice". http://www.h-net.org/~law/reviews/oshinskyd.htm. Retrieved on 2006-08-28.
- ^ Ted Gioia. "Work Songs". Oxford University Press. p. 201. http://books.google.com/books?id=bwGMXGbKKIwC&pg=PA201&lpg=PA201&dq=%22judge+william+c+keady%22&source=web&ots=E6rKXXVknS&sig=-zqO9sWzXzIkVp4DDuyam1vdzyI. Retrieved on 2007-12-08.
- ^ "The Chamber". Entertainment Weekly. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,302516,00.html. Retrieved on 2008-08-31.
- ^ "The Chamber (1996) - Trivia". IMDb. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115862/trivia. Retrieved on 2008-08-31.
- ^ "The Chamber (1996) Overview". Turner Classic Movies. http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title.jsp?stid=335710. Retrieved on 2008-08-31.
- ^ "The Chamber (1996)". IMDb. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115862/. Retrieved on 2008-08-31.
[edit] External links
- Mississippi State Penitentiary The second entry refers to the Mississippi State Penitentiary and lists its statistics as well as programs.
- History of capital punishment in Mississippi including pictures of how capital punishment took and takes place; it also lists references.
- Chain gang songs from Parchman Farm
- Worse Than Slavery": Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice
- Penitentiary Farm Pays and Makes Money
- Mississippi State Penitentiary is at coordinates 33°55′46″N 90°33′10″W / 33.929403°N 90.55275°WCoordinates: 33°55′46″N 90°33′10″W / 33.929403°N 90.55275°W
