Prison reform needs go unmet by Legislature for inmates like Susie Balfour, attorney says
By Korbin Felder | Originally published by Mississippi Today
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The one successful prison “reform” bill that passed this legislative session is indicative of the sad state of Mississippi politics, particularly when it comes to criminal legal reforms.
House Bill 1444 only requires the Mississippi Department of Corrections to create policies and procedures to provide personal protective equipment for incarcerated laborers handling cleaning chemicals and supplies. This is the absolute bare minimum that humans doing such work should be provided. If HB 1444 tells us anything, it’s that our Legislature will either do nothing or create harmful legislation while every few years allowing a singular piece of incredibly moderate legislation to act as a Band-Aid over a gaping wound.
This is what HB 1444 is, a Band-Aid. Yet, the deep wound remains.
This legislation was inspired by the story of Susie Balfour, who contracted breast cancer following 30 years of incarceration where she worked as a unit cleaner inside the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility. She labored without protective gear and worked all those years for free.
The lawsuit she filed after her release detailed the abysmal state of health care in Mississippi prisons, where people are not diagnosed with serious illnesses nor treated until too late. She unfortunately passed away a few years after coming home, as she found out about her cancer too late. I am glad her lawsuit and legacy continues. Her family is still fighting for justice for her.
Such a legal challenge is one path toward individual justice. However, systemic solutions are needed. I spoke to recidivism-reduction advocate Pauline Rogers of the non-profit RECH Foundation, who knew Ms. Balfour personally, and while she noted such minimally protective measures have long been needed in the state’s prison system, she also agreed such legislation alone doesn’t get to the root of the issues.
HB 1444 is an incredibly narrow piece of legislation, and it misses the opportunity to address the two central issues related to Ms. Balfour’s experience in MDOC.
First, is the issue of the awful health care system for incarcerated people in MDOC that fails to offer preventative care or regular screenings for serious illnesses. Second, state law requires forced labor in our prisons.
Incarcerated people in the Department of Corrections must work while in prison and up until 2022, the year after Ms. Balfour’s release in December 2021, the vast majority of prison jobs were unpaid (only the prison industries program, now MAGCOR, had paid jobs). Now, incarcerated laborers can be paid, but they just make pennies on the dollar (as low 0.05 cents per hour).
As to the first issue, we need systemwide changes to improve a privatized prison health care system that doesn’t diagnose people with serious illnesses until it is too late. Yet, people in prison are still charged $6 co-pays just to request to see a health care provider.
Still, this legislative session almost all of the prison health care bills died in the Senate. Our Legislature clearly lacks the will and incentive to improve the state of health care for incarcerated people. Legislators lack even the will to try and save the state money by avoiding litigation that will inevitably follow from lawsuits like Ms. Balfour’s and others.
In 2026, we need courageous leaders who believe forced labor in our state prisons is wrong.
Full stop. Forced labor in prisons, of course, is the history of the MDOC and born from our system of slavery that turned into convict leasing before becoming the plantation prison at Parchman. See Worse than Slavery by David Oshinsky.
This shameful history is baked into our state law. State law requires incarcerated people to work: “All inmates, unless physically unable, shall be required to perform such work as may be set out in the policy-making board of the institution.” Miss. Code Ann. § 47-5-126.
Our laws also name the direct connection to slavery and forced labor:
“The plantation known as Parchman owned by the state in Sunflower and Quitman counties, and in such other places as are now or may be hereafter owned or operated by the state for correctional purposes shall constitute the facilities of the correctional system for the custody, punishment, confinement at hard labor and reformation of all persons convicted of felony in the courts of the state and sentenced to the custody of the department…” Miss. Code Ann. § 47-5-3.
I can’t stress enough that during Ms. Balfour’s entire time as a unit cleaner in prison, she worked for free. Up until 2022, the majority of incarcerated people had to work for free while in MDOC.
The MDOC’s Incentive to Work Program, established in 2022, only pays a select portion of incarcerated laborers and that money actually comes through the “Inmate Welfare Fund.”
Presently, people in prison are forced to work for pennies on the dollar, while paying their own salaries via marked-up commissary items and expensive collect calls just to stay connected to family while being denied decent, humane health care with proper state oversight.
Our harsh sentencing laws, created by our Legislature, regularly keep people in prison for decades or their entire lives, even for offenses where people aren’t hurt. I often meet people in MDOC prisons serving 40-, 50- or 60-year sentences for drug offenses or property crimes. Many of these sentences are without parole eligibility because of our habitual sentencing laws.
I recently met a paralyzed man at Parchman with a 60-year sentence and no parole eligibility for the sale of cocaine out of Pearl River County. Since our elected officials aren’t passing sentencing reform legislation or making efforts to reduce our prison population, these people inevitably will grow old and ill in our prisons and the taxpayers will pay for it.
Taxpayers will also be on the hook for the attorney general defending more lawsuits, like Ms. Balfour’s against MDOC and its employees.
We need legislators with the moral clarity and courage to address issues of over-sentencing, aging in prisons, prison health care and forced labor in prison. We have yet to see such leadership or moral clarity from our elected officials. But no need to worry, incarcerated people will now get PPE while forced to clean with toxic chemicals!
The fact that HB 1444 is framed as progress is a sad statement about Mississippi politics. It took two legislative sessions to pass such a minimally protective bill. Our Legislature continues to do the bare minimum for the people of Mississippi, especially those in our state institutions, while actively ignoring the root causes of issues.
Most of our legislators purport to be Christian and motivated by their faith, yet they seemingly always forget Hebrews 13:3: “Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body.”
Korbin Felder is an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights. He lives in Jackson and represents incarcerated people in Mississippi prisons and other prison systems across the South.
This article was originally published by Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Source: Original Article
