Rapper Jay-Z is suing two Mississippi prisons on behalf of 29 prisoners who claim that prison conditions are dangerous and expose them to the type of constant violence that has already killed five prisoners.
According to Breitbart News, the lawsuit filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court in Greenville charges Mississippi State Penitentiary, also known as Parchman Farm, with negligence and says the deaths in the Mississippi prison is “a direct result of Mississippi’s utter disregard for the people it has incarcerated and their constitutional rights.”
The filing insists that the deaths are a result of years of neglect by authorities and severe understaffing. “As Mississippi has incarcerated increasing numbers of people,” NBC reported, “it has dramatically reduced its funding of prisons. As a result, prison conditions fail to meet even the most basic human rights.”
Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryan, however, said “The inmates are the ones that take each other’s lives. The inmates are the ones that fashion weapons out of metal.”