Investigation Reveals Widespread Medical Neglect in Mississippi Prisons

In its ongoing investigation, “Behind Bars, Beyond Care,” nonprofit newspaper Mississippi Today reports that sick people in the state’s prisons are suffering from medical neglect and mismanagement even as taxpayers pay more than $100 million to VitalCore Health Strategies, a private health care corporation.

The latest article in the series profiles Stephanie Nowlin, who spent two and a half years in prison for aggravated DUI before becoming Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain’s government affairs coordinator.

In that role, she focused on reducing a lengthy backlog in reclassification that too often means that people get left in restrictive housing who don’t need to be there and individuals who need medical care are stuck in facilities that don’t provide it.

In interviews with Mississippi Today, Ms. Nowlin said she was working with case managers at Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Rankin County to tackle that backlog in August 2023 when she was called over by three incarcerated men who were carrying a man whose legs appeared to be rotting, his flesh blackened and cracking.

After seeing the sick man suffering in “quickbed,” a unit where newly arrived people sleep on bunk beds in a dorm while waiting to be classified, the three men had decided to find help.

Ms. Nowlin took photos of the man’s legs and called the prison superintendent, John Hunt, who came in a golf cart to take the man to the prison infirmary. There, Ms. Nowlin said, nurses labeled the man “noncompliant” for allegedly not taking diabetes medication, put some ointment on his leg, and sent him back to the dorm.[MORE]