Mississippi’s Parchman Prison temporarily lost heat in one dorm. Inmates were moved while repairs were made, according to a statement from Department of Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain. At Marshall County Correctional, a gas line froze which shut down the kitchen.
Across the state at Wilkinson County Correctional Facility, Mitzi Magleby’s fiancé told her he was freezing. Her partner is an inmate at the facility. Magleby doesn’t believe corrections officers turned the heat up enough to make up for the unprecedented cold.
“He’s cold, cold showers cold everything, but other than that he’s okay,” she said.
Wilkinson is a private prison run by Management and Training Corporation. A spokesperson says the heat is working and any inmates who have requested additional blankets have received them.
In neighboring Louisiana, inmates at Caddo Correctional Center in Shreveport went without water for multiple days. Caddo Sheriff Steve Prator spoke about the conditions at a press conference last week.
“We have barely a trickle of water out there and there’s no way to flush toilets except on a rotating basis by dorm,” he said. “So it’s very uncomfortable out there for the inmates. They have very little heat out there.”
Shreveport emergency crews had no snow removal equipment to use to combat the winter storm, making it difficult to get to areas without water. Shreveport Mayor Adrian Perkins defended the lack of equipment during a press conference last week. He said if he suggested buying road salt over more sand in case of flooding, he would be laughed out of the building.
