Dear friend,

Thanks to your calls and letters, the U.S. Justice Department is now investigating four prisons in Mississippi, including the state penitentiary at Parchman. Sadly, the miserable conditions that gave rise to the investigation are not getting any better. We recently learned that the 19th person in the past two months has died in Parchman.

We need you to stay in the fight. We know Parchman cannot be salvaged, so we are asking you to sign our petition demanding that Parchman be closed for good: https://famm.org/parchman/

We also want to make sure Mississippi's other prisons are fixed for good. We are supporting a bill to create an independent oversight body that will have the authority to investigate and report on any problems in the state's prisons. We know the prison system won’t fix itself, and that's why we need an independent office to do it.

We've also learned more about the terrible conditions at Coleman federal prison in Florida. Two dozen women have now been diagnosed with Legionnaire's disease, a dangerous form of pneumonia. Last December, 14 women from Coleman filed a lawsuit against the Bureau of Prisons (BOP), alleging sexual assault and abuse at the hands of corrections officers.

Such problems are sadly not unique to Parchman or Coleman. We are talking to affected families about what they are seeing and hearing from their loved ones in federal prison. We also are talking to members of Congress about the need for oversight at the federal level.

If you've heard anything about prison conditions from a loved one, please contact us here: http://support.famm.org/site/Survey?ACTION_REQUIRED=URI_ACTION_USER_REQUESTS&SURVEY_ID=2141&autologin=true

We cannot leave people in prison and their families at home in the dark. We must shine a light on the abuse and mistreatment taking place and make sure it doesn't happen again.

Thanks,


Kevin Ring
President, FAMM