United States: official says hunger strike over at South Mississippi prison

The Mississippi Department of Corrections announced Tuesday that a hunger strike at the South Mississippi Correctional Institution at Leakesville has ended, as the prison system continues to push a crackdown on contraband there and elsewhere.

The announcement came eight days after officials said 11 maximum security inmates had begun refusing meals in the prison’s Area II, which holds about 1,800 of the 3,000 inmates in Leakesville. Relatives supporting inmates identified more men, saying all were protesting conditions at the prison, including a lockdown they claimed was barring men from outdoor exercise and other programs. Corrections spokeswoman Grace Simmons Fisher denied that inmates were being barred from exercise and said an inmate caught with contraband encouraged unrest.

It wasn’t exactly clear Tuesday when inmates began eating again and why. Prison officials don’t classify an inmate refusing meals as a hunger strike until after 21 days.

At least two inmates whom supporters identified as protesters have been transferred to Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman in recent days. Fisher said they were moved because officials deemed them security threats to prison employees and other inmates.

Wendy Houston, the wife of Derrick Houston, one of the inmates who was transferred, wrote in an email that her husband began eating again when he got to Parchman.

“The family, our lawyer and myself have been trying to get my husband transferred from SMCI for over a year,” she wrote. “If we had of known a hunger strike would get him transferred then he should have gotten on it a year ago.”

Read full article.