A stark contrast has been painted between what officials have touted about the Washington County Regional Correctional Facility and how one inmate’s relative describes conditions at the King Stokes Road site. Mildred Harris called the Delta Democrat Times on Wednesday, April 19 complaining that the facility was in a sanitary state that was unfit. “They can’t even eat their food because of the bird poop,” she said. “It’s sad. Birds are pooping all over. It’s just nasty!”
Harris’s allegation comes at a time when conditions at Mississippi’s jail facilities have fallen under heavy scrutiny, particularly at Parchman Prison when rapper Jay-Z and other celebrities filed a lawsuit about inhumane living conditions for inmates. In contrast to Harris’s complaint, Washington County Sheriff Milton Gaston and several county law enforcement officials appeared on the Delta News after receiving a glowing endorsement from the Mississippi Department of Corrections for garnering a near perfect score on an inspection back in early March. “We always keep our facility clean and we have several different groups that come out to inspect the facility all the time,” Gaston explained. “We have the Washington County Board of Supervisors, the Mississippi Department of Corrections and the grand jury come out to inspect the facility throughout the year.”
Harris’s counterpoint to the abundance of inspections is that the officials “always know when the inspections will take place. So, they know when to clean up.” The sheriff explained that it is very common for loved ones of inmates to express displeasure with conditions based on emotion and not necessarily on facts. “I’m not at the facility everyday,” he said. “But, I try to make sure that we are doing our best to keep the facility clean. But, we can’t make an inmate keep their own body clean, take a bath and take care of their hygiene. That’s a personal issue. And nobody wants their child to go to jail and when they get out here, we tell them that their cell is like their house and they must keep it clean.”
According to www.prisonroster.com, the Washington County Correctional Facility is a high security jail which has the capacity to house 60 inmates. Prison Roster also described the facility as one that houses a variety of inmates which include, those serving their sentences, those awaiting trial and those waiting to be transported to other facilities.
