Status Open Director Tim Outlaw Capacity 1,076 | Security class Minimum and medium Phone +1 662-274-0225 Opened 1996 | |
Location 833 West Street
Holly Springs, Mississippi Managed by Management and Training Corporation Address 833 West St, Holly Springs, MS 38635, USA | ||
Marshall County Correctional Center (MCCF) is a for-profit prison in Holly Springs, Marshall County, Mississippi, managed by Management and Training Corporation (MTC) on behalf of the Mississippi Department of Corrections.
Contents
The minimum/medium-security prison facility has an authorized capacity of 1,076 and is on 17 acres (6.9 ha) of enclosed area. The prison property has a total of 47 acres (19 ha). It is one of four private prisons operated on behalf of the state as of March 2017.
Accreditations
The prison was accredited by the American Correctional Association in January 1998, June 2000, September 2003, January 2007, January 2010, and March 2014.
Operation contracts
This facility has been operated by several for-profit prison management companies on behalf of the state. Cornell Companies was the first, running the prison into 2010, when it was acquired in a merger with GEO Group. GEO took over its contracts for three private prisons in Mississippi. The other two were Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility and East Mississippi Correctional Facility. In addition, the state had contracts with Corrections Corporation of America for the Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility and the Wilkinson County Correctional Facility.
In 2010 a class action suit was filed by the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center against GEO Group and the Mississippi Department of Corrections for mistreatment of prisoners and failure of operation of the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility. As a result of the settlement of this suit, the state forced out GEO Group and rebid to acquire a new management company.
At the time, Commissioner Chris Epps, MDOC, said that the department believed it would be advantageous for the state to solicit a combined bid for all three prisons for which contracts were being offered. It awarded a contract to Management and Training Corporation of Utah for all three private facilities. The public was not informed of the financial specifics of the contracts. In 2013 MTC was also awarded a contract for Wilkinson County Correctional Facility.
Epps resigned in November 2014 and pleaded guilty in February 2015 to charges related to Operation Mississippi Hustle, a major corruption investigation by the FBI. He is estimated to have been paid $1.47 million in bribes and kickbacks related to contracts which he had steered to certain prison management and other related companies during the previous decade. He cooperated with law enforcement in a continuing investigation in which several people have pleaded guilty and others have been convicted. Epps is due to be sentenced in May 2017.
In the summer of 2016, the state closed the Walnut Grove facility, which had been converted to serve adults only as part of the 2012 settlement. MTC was awarded a new 10-year contract by MDOC, effective August 2016, for management of Marshall County Correctional Facility, East Mississippi Correctional Facility, and Wilkinson County Correctional Facility.
Incidents
On March 27, 2001, 24-year-old Daniel Underwood was attacked by another inmate at the MCCF. The autopsy showed he had died of head injuries, apparently suffered during a beating by other prisoners. Another inmate apparently assisted in the attack by obscuring the view of security personnel. The prison was managed by Wackenhut Corrections Corporation. Warden E.L. Sparkman declined to discuss the circumstances, referring questions to the Corrections Department.
In 2009, the Mississippi Supreme Court reinstated a 2006 lawsuit filed pro se by ex-inmate Dennis Dobbs over conditions at the MCCF. He complained of a lack of air conditioning, ventilation and concerns regarding fire safety including an absence of sprinklers. The Supreme Court said that a Marshall County judge erred in dismissing the lawsuit. The justices said the Chancery court judge erroneously considered Dennis Dobbs' lawsuit as an appeal of his assault conviction prosecuted in another county. The Supreme Court said Dobbs' tort, for what he referred to as "inhumane" conditions at the Marshall County prison warranted a hearing.
In March 2015, corrections officials conducted a search at the MCCF and the state's three other for-profit prisons, seizing weapons (including 36 homemade knives), cell phones, and other prohibited materials at MCCF. “We believe there were some staff complicit in bringing in contraband,” Corrections Commissioner Marshall Fisher said, noting one had already resigned, and that four additional staff members were suspected of complicity.
Then U.S. Attorney Brad Pigott (he is now a federal judge) said the quantities of weapons seized leads him to believe that contraband weapons are more common at for-profit prisons. “This makes clear that prisons operated by corporations are much more dangerous places to work.” Private prisons are using money “which could have gone into hiring enough guards to find and remove knives from prisoners, and they are sending those tax dollars instead to their corporate headquarters,” he continued. According to Issa Arnita, MTC's spokesperson, "Employees caught attempting to bring contraband into our facilities will not only be terminated but will be criminally prosecuted to the highest extent of the law.”
On November 22, 2016, inmate Oscar Pirtle was killed in an altercation with another inmate.