Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Pelicia Hall gave a guided tour of the newly opened Delta Correctional Facility at Greenwood on Friday to a delegation of local leaders, elected state officials and corrections personnel.
The tour followed a grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Baldwin Road facility, formerly a private prison that has been closed for the past six years.
MDOC in February announced a decision to centralize the department’s Technical Violations Centers (TVC), closing centers in Washington and Simpson counties and moving those and the Greenwood TVC and Restitution Centers to Delta Correctional.
The newly opened facility houses about 400 male probationers and parolees who have violated terms of their supervision or have been ordered to pay restitution and are incarcerated while working. Most are in the program for somewhere between 30 days and three months, and MDOC is charged with preparing them for re-entry following time served.
When Hall announced the consolidation in February, she said she was keeping a pledge she made when Gov. Phil Bryant appointed her in 2017. She promised to “address concerns about the TVC program and provide meaningful rehabilitation to inmates.”
The grand opening and the tour that followed were designed to showcase those efforts.
Visitors were taken to the medical wing of the facility, where inmates are thoroughly checked and assessed for treatment as part of the regular admissions process.
Greenwood’s state Sen. David Jordan asked Hall about the 16 deaths in MDOC facilities in the month of August.
“Were those because of inadequate medical care?” he said.
Hall said that the number might sound unusual but wasn’t completely out of the ordinary.
“A lot of times people come into our system that have never had medical treatment for anything,” she said. She then explained that many inmates need eye exams, dental work and treatment for diseases that have gone untreated.
She conceded that while most of the August deaths occurred as the result of the process of disease, some in hospitals, “a couple” of the deaths in August were the results of “inmate-on-inmate violence” that occurred on site in MDOC facilities.
“It’s unrealistic to say a death is never going to happen within prison walls,” she said.
Jordan also inquired about vocational training for inmates, especially in trades where there is a demand for workers.
Hall said that many inmates enter the system already having those skills, but for those who come in without them, “we provide carpentry, welding and other employment-ready skills training.”
Nurses hosted a tour of the medical ward, where inmates receive two tuberculosis skin tests over their first days and are tested for HIV and syphilis. They are segregated from the general population for two days until all test results are known.
Requests for sick call are available throughout the facility and sick call boxes are checked every day.
Sometimes patients can be treated on site, but if they need emergency treatment, they are taken to Greenwood Leflore Hospital and for some treatments are taken to the state penitentiary at Parchman.
A nurse practitioner visits the facility every Tuesday and Thursday to provide orders for medications and to check lab results.
“A lot come in with various disease processes,” said Kenya Harris, a nurse. “Our job here is to do promotion of good health.”
In the education wing of the prison, classes were in session in neatly decorated classrooms with bright white walls.
A cognitive behavioral therapy class was titled “The Courage to Change.” The class is designed to change thought processes and help inmates see how to do things differently than in the past.
A list of past behaviors included making excuses, ignoring responsibilities, feeling above the law, engaging in self-serving acts of kindness, lazy thinking and getting sidetracked, among others.
Other classes on the same hall included those on alcohol and drug use, pre-employment and re-entry skills and life skills. A library in the education wing was being stocked and books shelved by an inmate as the tour moved through.
Hall stopped at a life skills class where inmates were working on self-examination and accountability, looking at how to be better dads and listing things to be grateful for.
The intake section included an area where new inmates are strip-searched on entry and receive a shower and a hair cut before being taken to the medical wing.
Outdoor areas house fenced-in basketball courts and a section of open space laid out with exercise and weightlifting equipment.
Warden Everett Matheny was present for the tour, which ended back in the visitation area of the facility where the grand opening ceremony was held. State Sen. Lydia Chassaniol and Rep. Willie Perkins also participated in the tour.
Greenwood Mayor Carolyn McAdams toured the facility, observing it had been spruced up and cleaned up. “I’m back on my old stomping ground,” McAdams said.
She was previously employed by the company that operated Delta Correctional, a 1,000-bed private prison that closed in January 2012 because of a statewide surplus of prison beds in Mississippi. A portion of the facility serves as the Leflore County Jail.
The new Delta Correctional Facility of MDOC shares food services, provided by Aramark, with the county jail.
•Contact Kathryn Eastburn at 581-7235 or keastburn@gwcommonwealth.com.
