Mississippi’s longtime corrections commissioner resigned Wednesday amid a federal investigation into the state’s prison system, which has been plagued by squalid conditions and violence by guards and inmates.
The commissioner, Christopher Epps, who had led the Mississippi Department of Corrections since 2002, submitted a letter of resignation to Gov. Phil Bryant on Wednesday, Knox Graham, a spokesman for the governor, said.
Mr. Graham said he could not discuss why Mr. Epps had stepped down, but he said the governor had begun a search for an interim commissioner.
Mr. Epps, 53, could not be reached for comment.
The Justice Department is investigating treatment of prisoners and conditions at jails, said a person with knowledge of the investigation who was not authorized to speak publicly. Advocates for prisoners say that stabbings, rapes, beatings and extortion are common in a number of the state’s jails.
Mr. Epps started his career in 1982 as a corrections officer at a penitentiary in Parchman, Miss. He was the longest-serving state corrections commissioner in Mississippi history and was among the most veteran in the nation.
Despite the problems in the prison system, Mr. Epps was influential among colleagues, serving as president of both the Association of State Correctional Administrators and the American Correctional Association before his resignation.
In a letter last month in The Clarion-Ledger, a Mississippi newspaper that published a series of articles about conditions in state prisons, Mr. Epps played down the level of violence in jails and said the state’s recidivism rates were among the lowest in the nation. He also said the average cost of housing a prisoner — $42.14 a day — was among the nation’s lowest.
During his tenure, Mr. Epps was praised for his efforts to eliminate the system’s reliance on solitary confinement to punish prisoners, especially those with mental illnesses, but critics said he did too little to stop violence.
Prisoner advocates and civil rights groups said that the worst conditions existed in prisons run by private companies — over which Mr. Epps had ultimate responsibility — but that the problems extended to prisons managed directly by the state Corrections Department as well.
Jody E. Owens, a managing attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said conditions in the state prison system were substandard and often dangerous.
“The buck stops with Commissioner Epps,” he said.
A federal lawsuit filed in 2013 by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union charged that at one state prison, the East Mississippi Correctional Facility, mentally ill prisoners were “locked down in filthy cells for days, weeks or even years.”
“Setting fires is often the only way to get medical attention in emergencies,” said the lawsuit, which is pending in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi.
The prison, which houses about 1,400 inmates, is managed through a contract with the state by the Utah-based Management Training Corporation.
In 2012, a federal judge approved an agreement between the Justice Department and the state to implement an overhaul at another state jail, the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility, where it was discovered that staff members had coerced inmates to have sex in exchange for food.
The commissioner, Christopher Epps, who had led the Mississippi Department of Corrections since 2002, submitted a letter of resignation to Gov. Phil Bryant on Wednesday, Knox Graham, a spokesman for the governor, said.
Mr. Graham said he could not discuss why Mr. Epps had stepped down, but he said the governor had begun a search for an interim commissioner.
Mr. Epps, 53, could not be reached for comment.
The Justice Department is investigating treatment of prisoners and conditions at jails, said a person with knowledge of the investigation who was not authorized to speak publicly. Advocates for prisoners say that stabbings, rapes, beatings and extortion are common in a number of the state’s jails.
Mr. Epps started his career in 1982 as a corrections officer at a penitentiary in Parchman, Miss. He was the longest-serving state corrections commissioner in Mississippi history and was among the most veteran in the nation.
Despite the problems in the prison system, Mr. Epps was influential among colleagues, serving as president of both the Association of State Correctional Administrators and the American Correctional Association before his resignation.
In a letter last month in The Clarion-Ledger, a Mississippi newspaper that published a series of articles about conditions in state prisons, Mr. Epps played down the level of violence in jails and said the state’s recidivism rates were among the lowest in the nation. He also said the average cost of housing a prisoner — $42.14 a day — was among the nation’s lowest.
During his tenure, Mr. Epps was praised for his efforts to eliminate the system’s reliance on solitary confinement to punish prisoners, especially those with mental illnesses, but critics said he did too little to stop violence.
Prisoner advocates and civil rights groups said that the worst conditions existed in prisons run by private companies — over which Mr. Epps had ultimate responsibility — but that the problems extended to prisons managed directly by the state Corrections Department as well.
Jody E. Owens, a managing attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said conditions in the state prison system were substandard and often dangerous.
“The buck stops with Commissioner Epps,” he said.
A federal lawsuit filed in 2013 by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union charged that at one state prison, the East Mississippi Correctional Facility, mentally ill prisoners were “locked down in filthy cells for days, weeks or even years.”
“Setting fires is often the only way to get medical attention in emergencies,” said the lawsuit, which is pending in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi.
The prison, which houses about 1,400 inmates, is managed through a contract with the state by the Utah-based Management Training Corporation.
In 2012, a federal judge approved an agreement between the Justice Department and the state to implement an overhaul at another state jail, the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility, where it was discovered that staff members had coerced inmates to have sex in exchange for food.
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