Attorneys for Jay-Z’s Roc Nation and rapper Yo Gotti have filed a second lawsuit Tuesday against the Mississippi State Penitentiary on behalf of 152 inmates who they say live in “abhorrent conditions.”
“The conditions of confinement at Parchman are so barbaric, the deprivation of health and mental health care so extreme, and the defects in security so severe, that the people confined at Parchman live a miserable and hopeless existence confronted daily by imminent risk of substantial harm in violation of their rights under the U.S. Constitution,” Marcy Croft, one of the attorneys representing inmates in the two lawsuits, wrote.
The suit claims that due to staff shortages, incompetence, and corruption, inmates are forced to live in inhumane conditions. Nine inmates have died at Parchman this year, putting the facility on “pace to break its morbidly shameful record of annual inmate deaths.”
The inmates are asking the court to maintain the jurisdiction of Parchman until the Department of Corrections. They want access to decent healthcare and mental health services, as well as other fundamental human rights.