1

Name of Author(s): Wyatt Emmerich

Author’s Title (editor, columnist, etc.): Publisher

Newspaper: Northside Sun

Address: 246 Briarwood Drive

City: Jackson

State: MS

ZIP: 39206

Phone: 601-573-7890

Fax: 601-957-1533

E-Mail: wyatt@northsidesun.com

Submitted by:

Title of Person Submitting: Wyatt Emmerich Phone Number: 601-573-7890 E-mail Address: wyatt@northsidesun.com

What is the subject/title of the entry? Mentally ill convicts

Date(s) of publication? March 15, 2018, March 22, 2018, April 5, 2018, April 19, 2018.

Is your newspaper under 50,000 circulation or above 50,000 circulation? Under

Please give a brief explanation of issues discussed and the results achieved. (This space will expand as you type in your comments.) The East Mississippi Correctional Facility is a modern day dungeon where mentally ill convict are abused. Finally, the Southern Law Center filed suit against the Mississippi Department of Corrections. For five weeks, I was the only journalist to cover the trial every day, reporting on the atrocities surfaced by this lawsuit.

Carmage Walls Commentary Prize

2018 Entry Form

Page 4A Thursday, March 15, 2018

AT THE FEDERAL courthouse inJackson, East Mississippi CorrectionalFacility is defending itself against a law-suit claiming atrocious conditions for itsinmates.The facility, just south of I-20 six miles

west of Meridian, was built in 1999 tohouse 1,500 inmates. It specialized inhousing the mentally ill.Taking care of the mentally ill has

always been one of the greatest challengesof a civilized society. Over the centuries,horror stories of genuine hell houses havebeen a never-ending blight on modernsociety.So how did a prison become a mental

health facility? The answer lies in the age-old problem of unintended consequences.Forty years ago, media exposes of the

horrific conditions of mental institutionsled to a nationwide movement to shutthem down. This movement was high-lighted by the 1975 movie One Flew Overthe Cuckoo’s Nest, starring JackNicholson who won an Academy Awardfor his performance of a brilliant, eccentriccrazy person whose ultimate fate was alobotomy which turned his lovable charac-ter into a zombie.The movement released hundreds of

thousands of crazy people to roam thestreets. You can still see them today onmany street corners wandering aimlessly,talking to themselves and often gettinginto conflicts with the law.The plan was to have more humane,

smaller local mental health facilities. Tosome extent this has happened. But thebest laid plans of mice and men are easilyled astray. Mounting needs and budgetcrunches shortcircuited the benevolentvision.So what happened? Our prison facilities

have become the de facto mental institu-tions for hundreds of thousands of mental-ly ill people. We are back to where westarted, but even worse because prisonguards lack basic mental health trainingthat once partially existed at our closedmental institutions. We are worse off thanwhen we started.Even worse, a large percentage of the

mentally ill cannot be legally sent to stateprison so they linger in county jails wherethey are inhumanely subjected to crueltreatment by ill-trained guards. Our jailsare overwhelmed.If these ill people are forcibly medicated,

then they can temporarily become non-threatening to themselves or others, whichmeans by law, they must be released.Once free, they stop taking their medica-tions and the whole process starts over.This is a sad state of affairs. There are

many terrible diseases but mental illness is

probably the most cruel and the most diffi-cult to deal with.All the experts know what is needed:

Modern, clean facilities where trainedexperts can compassionately treat the vic-tims. There should be gardens and walk-ing trails and organized activities. Patientsshould be genetically tested to find whatdrugs are most suitable. Intensive personaltherapy combined with cutting edge drugscould save many of these lives with theultimate goal of reintegration into society.But it is not so for one reason: Money.

Such modern, humane treatment is exorbi-tant and our society has not deemed this apriority. So, instead, we have the EastMississippi Correctional Facility (EMCF.)Like early childhood education, properly

treating mental illness would save billionsin the long run. But the politics of theworld make it almost impossible to hap-pen. Many mentally ill people end upcommitting suicide. Nobody Cares AboutCrazy People: The Chaos and Heartbreakof Mental Health in America by RonPowers is an excellent book that chroni-cles this crisis in our country. This is a disaster of huge proportions.

One in 10 people will suffer serious men-tal illness at some point in their lives. Theeconomic toll is billions upon billions.Often treatment is left to the family, if

the mentally ill person is blessed enoughto have one. The emotional and financialburden of dealing with a mentally ill fami-ly member is devastating. One of the firstpieces of advice to family members strug-gling to help is to seek mental counselinglest they become overwhelmed them-selves.There are genetic factors behind mental

illness, but environmental stress can be thetrigger. As our society becomes increas-ingly chaotic and stressed, mental illnessis reaching epic proportions.EMCF is run by a private company,

Management & Training Corporation,based in Utah. It’s the third largest privateprison company in the country. AttorneyGeneral Jim Hood is suing the companybecause of its involvement with the ChrisEpps bribery scandal.In 2015, the American Civil Liberties

Union and the Southern Poverty LawCenter filed suit to force improvements atEMCF.The suit alleges the usual horrors that

have plagued mental institutions forever.Rape, beatings, cruelty, failure to med-icate. As part of the evidence reviewed byJudge William Barbour, a captain at theprison said in a deposition that prisoner-on-prisoner violence was commonplace,that corrections officers were poorlytrained, and that guards facilitated inmateviolence by opening cell doors and thenfailed to intervene when prisoners wereassaulted.Guards arranged for prisoners to attack

one another, ignored fires set by inmatesto signal distress, and allowed prisoners totrade whiskey and cellphones. Mentally illwere locked in solitary confinement forweeks at a time. Plumbing failures.Roaches. Filth. Rats.Watered Down gruel.One mentally ill patient sliced himself upand was left for hours on his cell floor tobleed to death. The list of atrocities islong. Time marches on. There is nothing new

under the sun. The horror of EMCF isrepeated time and time again, especially inpoorer places where money is lacking.Let’s hope this lawsuit can make some

small dent in our collective consciousness.Let’s hope in the march of progress, civi-lized society can one day learn to care forthe mentally ill like we do those sufferingfrom heart disease and cancer.

Lawsuit againstEMCF exposesa harsh reality

By WYATTEMMERICH

from the publisher

Page 4A Thursday, March 22, 2018

AT ONE END of Jackson’s CongressStreet sits the modern Federal Courthouse.At the other end sits our traditional StateCapitol. They face each other at oppositeends of the street.This physical juxtaposition has significantmeaning this month. A class action suit willdetermine who runs the East MississippiCorrectional Facility (EMCF) in Meridian.Will it be the federal courts or the state exec-utive branch?For the last two weeks, I have listened tohours of testimony about EMCF, which hasbeen designated as the state prison for crimi-nals with mental illness. Eighty percent of theinmates suffer from a host of disordersincluding schizophrenia, bipolar disorder,depression and severe anxiety.As a lifelong journalist, I consider myselfsomewhat jaded. But even I was unpreparedfor the magnitude of the alleged atrocities.It’s so bad, it’s almost hard to put into words.

The trial is open to the public. Bear in mindthe defense has yet to make its case. I praythe plaintiffs have distorted the horrific condi-tions, but I fear they have not.Prisoners testified EMCF is run by twogangs, the Vice Lords and the GangsterDisciples. Official staff is dependent on thegangs for the day-to-day operations.Severely mentally ill patients are not giventheir medications, causing them to haveseizures and psychotic breaks. They are beat-en. They are locked in isolation where thelights and plumbing fail for weeks at a time.Their cells are rife with rats. They loseweight rapidly from inadequate food. Oftenthe only way to get attention is to light a firein their cell. They are constantly trying to killthemselves, typically by cutting themselveswith scraps from broken light bulbs.Except for the severely mentally ill lockedin solitary, the other prisoners have innumer-able ways of defeating their locks and comeand go from their cells as they please. Non-stop bedlam. A genuine hellhole.During what was supposed to be a lock-down, there was a gang fight on a video cam-era involving 30 prisoners. The video showsa prisoner in a wheelchair stabbed in thehead.Contraband is everywhere: Cigarettes, cellphones, pot, meth, prescription drugs, youname it. The gangs control the trade. Guardsare in on it. It’s big business.The gangs are a controlling force. They canassault who they want at will. The gang lead-ership decides what prisoner gets what cell.Surprisingly, there is a great amount of doc-umentation of this. For instance, the failure todo roll call is meticulously documented withdaily reports. So are the fires, fights and fail-ure to supply medicine. Over a thousandexhibits have been entered into evidence.Most are the prison’s own internal reports.The testimony of one prisoner in particularis haunting me. He was a former networkengineer from NASA Stennis Space Centeron the coast. He suffers from schizophrenia,epilepsy, bipolar disorder and depression. Hehas lost weight to the point he looks like a

ghost from the Auschwitz Nazi concentrationcamp. He was convicted of rape and turneddown a 10-year plea bargain. He wanted thedeath penalty. The judge gave him life.This man was trembling so badly duringhis testimony he could barely keep fromfalling out of his chair. He told a harrowingstory of being locked in a dark cell of solitaryconfinement. Plumbing and lighting wouldgo out for weeks at a time. Medication wassporadic, causing him to have epileptic fits,hear voices and go crazy.“I have, you know, murderous thoughts,suicidal thoughts, pains in my head, the shak-ing. I see and hear the voices. It’s almostunbearable sometimes. . . but if I get mymedication I’m fine. I feel normal. I feelhuman again.”I’m not sure what the best protocol is fortreating mentally ill people, but I’d bet hand-ing them over to the prison gangs is not a rec-ommended procedure.Bear in mind, mentally ill people are para-noid and delusional to begin with. Then youbeat them up, starve them, withhold theirmedications, leave them in the dark with rats.Is it any wonder they constantly try to killthemselves? Prisoners cutting themselves is adaily occurrence. Suicides are rampant.

ONE OUTSIDE prison inspector wasshown a cell covered in blood. She took aphoto. It was entered into the exhibits.This inspector’s visit was known days inadvance, but the prison staff didn’t even both-er to clean up the blood on the floor. That’show commonplace it is. That’s how bad it is.Blood, feces, roaches, rats are everywhere.EMCF is run by the third largest prisonmanagement company in the country. It’s apublicly traded company, Management &Training Corp. They are caught up in theChris Epps bribery scandal. MississippiAttorney General has named them in a civillawsuit he has filed.The Mississippi Department of Corrections(MDOC) has a compliance officer who testi-fied about EMCF. Her reports show massivenon-compliance. MDOC is supposed to bereimbursed for non-compliance, but it never

was. It’s as though MDOC just didn’t care.That’s the weird thing. Report after reportshow the atrocities but they were ignored.The American Civil Liberties Union(ACLU) and the Southern Poverty LawCenter (SPLC) are behind the class actionsuit. Yazoo native William Barbour, HaleyBarbour’s cousin, is presiding. There is nojury. He alone decides what to do.Sitting day after day in the courtroom, Ican’t help but like Judge Barbour. He seemswise and fair and can inject moments ofhumor in this dismal affair. A good friendfrom Yazoo City told me he is a class act andwas his Boy Scout troop leader. “I don’twant to say he’s an Atticus Finch, but he’sclose.”I sense that Barbour has zero desire to runthis prison by judicial fiat, but what is to bedone? We can’t allow such barbarism in ourstate, even for psychotic drug dealers, rapistsand murderers. I asked two expert witnesses how EMCFcompared to other facilities throughout thenation. They both said the same thing. It wasthe worst of the 50 or so prisons they hadinspected. By far.The Eighth Amendment of the UnitedStates Constitution bans the infliction of“cruel and unusual punishments.”Can Barbour do any better? Based onresults throughout the country, court interven-tion can work. The courts can do what ourpoliticians won’t do. Barbour doesn’t have toget elected. He can force the state to do whatit takes. The irony is that a properly runprison could be less expensive, not more.By the way, I am often the only “press” inthe courtroom. The Clarion-Ledger, JacksonFree Press and Associated Press come andgo sporadically. One day a New York Timesreporter was there. Haven’t seen anybodyfrom Facebook or Google.No state officials of any kind are to be

found. Nobody cares about crazy people,especially the criminal ones.

Atrocities galoreduring testimony

over mental prison

By WYATTEMMERICH

from the publisher

Page 4A Thursday, April 5, 2018

THE UNITED STATES FederalCourthouse in downtown Jackson is a gleam-ing testament to the power of our federalgovernment. The walls are literally works ofart. The doors are hand carven in elaboratestyles. Magnificent hallways and sheets ofglass scream the power of modern prosperity.So it seemed symbolic as I left the court-room and noticed a 30-yard trail of blood allthe way to the elevator.I had just finished listening to testimony ofa 26-year-old African-American man whohad been in prison for seven years. He ismentally ill. Schizophrenia, bipolar - theworks. He is a cutter, meaning that he won’tstop cutting himself. Several times he hascome close to bleeding to death.I was impressed by his vocabulary. At onepoint he used the word “profusely” todescribe his bleeding. He seemed intelligent.Ten percent of Americans will suffer seri-ous mental illness at some point in our lives.

Just like we all harbor the vulnerabilities ofheart disease and cancer, we are all at risk ofmental illness. It is in the nature of the wiringof our brains.Like a booby trap waiting to explode, men-tal illness is triggered by environmental trau-ma. Some of us are blessed enough to avoidsuch trauma, but the hard nature of lifemeans, inevitably, like the random mutationsthat lead to cancer, some will fall prey.Highly intelligent and creative people areespecially vulnerable.The young prisoner has been locked up inthe East Mississippi Correctional Facility(EMCF) which is the subject of an on-goingfederal lawsuit for its barbaric conditions.He was asked why he cut himself. “I can’treally say,” he testified. “I just get this over-whelming urge. After I do it, it’s a relief. Likea burden has been taken off my shoulders.”Another time, the young man drank clean-ing fluid off a cleaning cart. “That’s stupid,”the guard said and walked away. Somehow,he survived.This prisoner is due to be released in amonth, but there is little chance he will recov-er. There is a narrow window of opportunityto save someone affected by severe mentalillness. They are paranoid. They are terrified.They are overwhelmed by anxiety.Timely intervention can bring them back. Asimple mouth swab genetic test can nowidentify the best medicines. Gentle and kindtherapy in a peaceful, tranquil setting can sta-bilize their fear and slowly bring them backto reality, just like chemotherapy and angio-plasty can save a person from cancer or heartdisease.In our ignorance, we still often blame men-tally ill people for their condition. Becausemental illness affects behavior, a mentally illperson lacking family support or financialresources will often find themselves arrested.Many of them find their way to EMCF, theMississippi prison designated to house thementally ill.According to the law, these mentally illprisoners are supposed to receive the inten-sive therapy and appropriate medications that

can bring them back. But at EMCF, it rarelyturns out that way.Instead, they are thrown into a hellhole - aprison run by gangs, where they are beaten,raped, starved, gassed and stuffed in a darksolitary cell with roaches, rats and thin gruel.If it had been the heart or kidney that hadfailed, these people would have Medicaidand could get decent medical interventions.But woe to a poor person whose brainbecomes diseased in Mississippi.Centuries ago, these people were burned atthe stake for being witches. Or holes weredrilled in their heads to let the bad spirtsescape, a procedure that usually led to death.Others were locked up in insane asylums notmuch better than EMCF. The Nazis just shot the mentally ill. Wedon’t do that in Mississippi. We torture themuntil they cut themselves. Then rescue themfrom impending death; punish them for theattempt; and then torture them some more. It’s not that the administrators and guards atEMCF are bad people. They probably repre-sent a standard Bell curve of human behav-ior. Some are saints. Some are sinners. Mostfall somewhere in-between.They are trying to do an extremely difficultjob with inadequate resources. There is ashortage of skilled labor to fill these posi-tions. Fire the existing staff and there is noguarantee the next crew will be any better.

DURING THE TRIAL numerousexhibits were submitted showing the staffingof mandatory positions in the prison is oftenhalf of what it is required to be. In addition,the cell locks are easily defeated. So thegangs take over.Given the staff shortage, over time, theprison has learned to use the gangs to helpmanage the prison. The gangs, which have anelaborate hierarchy, decide which prisonershave which beds. They keep order and disci-pline. They are rewarded with a franchise tosell contraband. For a price, you can get any-thing you want.Some of the guards are in cahoots. Othersare intimidated by the gang leaders. Others

just want to keep their head down and getpaid. No doubt, some are trying their best.Although expedient, using gangs to helpmaintain prison order is fraught with potentialproblems.First of all, gangs are illegal organizationsthat engage in illegal activities and use vio-lence to maintain discipline. Once gangs geta toehold, they expand. If gangs are allowedto run our prisons, they may infiltrate lawenforcement and numerous other areas of oureconomy. Just look at Mexico if you want tosee the pitfalls of tolerating gang entrench-ment.How can the FBI allow this to happen?They should be nipping this in the bud.Second, it is absolutely inhumane to allowgangs to run a prison for the mentally ill. Thegangs have no understanding of the uniquenature of mental illness, so they just beat andisolate these people until they cut themselves,hang themselves and light fires in their cellsas a cry for help.Putting a mentally ill person in these condi-tions is a death sentence – either actual deathor a living hell. If psychosis isn’t stabilized,the brain undergoes permanent physicalchanges that can be seen on an MRI. I could recount horror story after horrorstory. It’s all in the transcript.Society owes our affluence to brilliant, cre-ative individuals. These are our inventors,entrepreneurs and writers. But the same men-tal structures that allow creativity also createa vulnerability for mental illness. To throwthese people into a hellhole like EMCF is notcivilized.I am under no illusion that a federal magicwand can eradicate this blight on humanity.But there are states that have instituted farbetter practices and procedures, usually byfederal decree. Mississippi is far behind. Wemust do better.It would be great if our state leaders cared,but they don’t. I haven’t seen one of them atthe trial. Nobody cares about crazy people.Jesus spoke about the prisoners in Matthew25:35. His words are clear. What we do tothese people, we do to him.

Mentally ill shouldnot be at the mercy

of gang leaders

By WYATTEMMERICH

from the publisher

Page 4A Thursday, April 19, 2018

TWO HUNDRED and twenty-six yearsago, the Federalists were having trouble get-ting the states to ratify the new Constitutionof the United States. The anti-Federalists, ledby Samuel Adams, John Hancock andPatrick Henry, feared the proposed constitu-tion did not adequately protect the individualrights of the common man. As a result, James Madison drafted the Billof Rights. The rest is history.This history is playing out in real time asfederal District Court Judge WilliamBarbour must decide whether to ordersweeping changes at the East MississippiCorrectional Facility (EMCF) just east ofMeridian.The Eighth Amendment of the Bill ofRights bans “cruel and unusual” punish-ments. The question is whether the mentallyill prisoners at EMCF have been subject tocruel and unusual punishments.Almost every day for the past five weeks, Iattended portions of the trial which was heldin the beautiful Federal Building in down-town Jackson. The sparsely attended trial isnow over and we await the judge’s decision.As a journalist, the trial offered a mother-lode of insights into the Mississippi prisonsystem, one of the biggest items in the statebudget at $300 million a year, five percent of

total general fund expenditures.If you had asked me before the trial to rateMississippi prisons on a scale of one to tenwith one being barbaric and 10 being ideal, Iwould have said a five. Now I would say it’scloser to a one or two.I listened to a dozen prisoners testify. Thehorror stories were sickening: rats, roaches,rapes, beatings, solitary confinement forweeks in total darkness, deathly ill patientsdenied medicines, inedible food, fires in cellsto get attention, blood covered cells from sui-cidal cuttings, locks that are easily defeatedallowing gangs to have the run of the prison.Drugs, shanks and other contraband are rife.There have already been four deaths so farthis year.The prison is managed by a private compa-ny, Management and Training Corporation(MTC), which got the job in a no-bid con-tract signed by former MississippiDepartment of Corrections (MDOC)Commissioner Chris Epps.This is the same company that hired CecilMcCrory, a former state legislator, as a con-sultant for $120,000 a year. McCrory kickedback over $100,000 to Epps. They are bothnow in jail for bribery while MTC still runsthe prison. Attorney General Jim Hood iscurrently suing MTC over the affair.By contract, MTC is supposed to have acertain number of guards staffing the prison.But internal reports presented at the trialshow MTC only staffs about half the posi-tions. As a result, MTC is supposed torefund millions of dollars to MDOC, but nota penny has been repaid to the state.The MDOC contract compliance officerhas reported on this non-compliance foryears but the reports have been ignored bycurrent MDOC Commissioner Pelicia Hall,according to her testimony.Meanwhile, the EMCF compliance officersent email after e-mail to officers at MDOCand MTC complaining that the prison wasbeing run by gangs. Nobody did anything.How do you explain this? The only logicalexplanation is gross incompetence or a con-tinuation of the type of corruption that landedEpps and McCrory in jail.Because states have done a terrible job run-ning prisons, the federal courts have inter-vened over the last 50 years. Today, over halfthe nation’s prisoners reside in prisons thatare under some type of federal court order.In 1991, the U.S. Supreme Court, in an

opinion written by Antonin Scalia, raised thebar for federal intervention. The prison hadto engage in “unnecessary and wanton inflic-tion of pain” and exhibit “intentional indiffer-ence.” Sending a thousand mentally ill people to aprison run by gangs, in my humble opinion,meets both standards.I recall one young man who was raped. Hewanted to press charges against his rapist.The guard said, “So what’s the matter? Doesyour little booty hurt?” The prison refused tosend the blood and semen covered under-wear to the local sheriff’s office. As a result,the rapist went unpunished. That is just oneof many horror stories.Just last year, this same story played out inAlabama. During the trial, one of the youngprisoners committed suicide shortly after tes-tifying, shocking the federal judge, MyronThompson, who issued an emergency decreeto change prison practices.In June 2017, Judge Thompson issued a305 page opinion implementing sweepingchanges into the Alabama prison system.Judge Thompson wrote, “Surprisingly, theevidence from both sides (including testimo-ny from Commissioner Dunn and AssociateCommissioner Naglich as well as that of allexperts) extensively and materially supportedthe plaintiffs’ claims.”

UNLIKE ALABAMA where the prisonofficials acknowledged the inadequacies oftheir system, Mississippi prison officials vig-orously defended EMCF. Their testimonywas evasive and defensive.After the plaintiffs presented a veritablemountain of damning evidence, I wonderedwhat the defense would say. In essence, theyshrugged their shoulders and said, “Sowhat?” In the words of the EMCF wardenduring his testimony about violence and con-traband: "It's the nature of prisons. It's thenature of the beast."We can do better than that.Unlike Judge Thompson, an African-American appointed by Jimmy Carter, JudgeBarbour, a Yazoo City cousin of HaleyBarbour appointed by Ronald Reagan,seems to have little fire in his belly for tryingto remedy the EMCF hellhole.And who can blame him? Recruitingskilled guards and psychiatrists to a smallMississippi city is a monumental task.Managing the criminally insane has alwaysbeen one of the most challenging aspects of

civilization.That being said, no judge likes to be over-ruled by a higher court and the case againstEMCF is rock solid. The case law is clear.You cannot allow prisoners, especially thementally ill, to be abused and denied appro-priate medical treatment.I don’t always agree with the SouthernPoverty Law Center (SPLC) or theAmerican Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)but I give them credit for being an advocatefor this helpless class of people.The Republican leadership of Mississippicares nothing about the criminally insane.Not one of them attended a single minute ofthe trial. Meanwhile, there are empty build-ings at Whitfield. Their only concern is tocut the prison budget by outsourcing its oper-ation to private companies with questionablebackgrounds. As a result, we have gangsrunning our prisons. If we don’t nip this inthe bud now, we will regret it.Mississippi spends a 10th as much as otherstates per prisoner. The chance of the Republicans spending more is nil. If thecourts intervene, then the Republicans havean out. They can claim they had no choiceand keep their Americans for Prosperitysuper PAC money. It’s a good deal foreveryone.I am amazed at the checks and balanceswe enjoy in the United States. Our federalsystem, combined with advocacy groups,will end up making a huge difference andwell they should.The Alabama governor has suggested call-ing a special session to address their courtorder and their dilapidated prison system. Atthe very least, Judge Barbour should appointthe SPLC and ACLU as court monitors tooversee reforms at EMCF. MDOC hasfailed miserably and desperately needs suchoversight.Locking up the mentally ill and throwingaway the key is wrong. As a civilized societywe must treat the mentally ill, not terrorizethem with solitary confinement in a dark, ratinfested cell.With all due respect to non-believers andother religious groups, Mississippi is still aChristian state. As such, there is one ultimateauthority for most of the voters inMississippi. Jesus Christ was clear aboutprisoners. What we do to them, we do tohim. It would be wise to obey the King ofthe Universe.

Prison trial ends,fate of EMCF waitson Barbour’s ruling

By WYATTEMMERICH

from the publisher