SPLC sues over records on Hinds County jail deaths

The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a lawsuit Tuesday in Hinds County Chancery Court, accusing the Hinds County Sheriff’s Department and the Mississippi Department of Public Safety of violating the Mississippi Public Records Act by failing to turn over records about deaths at the Hinds County Detention Center in Raymond, the complaint says.

“The public has a right to know the extent to which deaths are occurring in the Hinds County detention facility and why,” Andrea Alajbegovic, senior staff attorney for the SPLC, said in a statement quoted in the lawsuit.

Hinds County Sheriff Tyree Jones said Tuesday afternoon he was not familiar with the lawsuit and declined to comment, the complaint says. Bailey Martin Holloway, a spokeswoman for the Department of Public Safety, said the agency is aware of the complaint but declined to comment, according to the filing.

The lawsuit says there is not a complete picture of how many people have died at the Raymond jail. It cites DPS statements that at least five people died there between 2022 and April 2025 and local media reports that at least six deaths occurred at the facility in 2025 alone. The complaint also notes that DPS collects data on in-custody deaths under the federal Deaths in Custody Reporting Act and argues the agency should have records on the jail deaths.

The SPLC says it first submitted a public records request to the sheriff’s office in May 2025 and followed up by mail, phone and email, but had not received the records nine months later. The complaint says DPS did not respond to a records request submitted earlier this month or to a follow-up message after seven working days. The SPLC served a copy of the complaint to the Mississippi Ethics Commission, which handles Public Records Act complaints, the filing says.

The Raymond Detention Center has been the subject of long-running legal action, including a federal consent decree aimed at remedying unsafe conditions. U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves held the county in contempt twice in 2021 for failing to comply with the decree after seven people died at the facility that year, including deaths ruled homicide and suicide, the complaint notes. Reeves ordered a federal receiver to take control of the jail the next year, but the receiver did not begin work until late 2025 because of a county appeal. The county has also begun building a new jail in Jackson, and the complaint says the first phase is expected to be complete in the fall.

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