The state fire marshal is investigating a long-troubled unit at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, which could result in the unit’s closure if conditions don’t improve.

Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney confirmed to Mississippi Today that deputies with the state fire marshal’s office, a division of his agency, were at Parchman’s Unit 29 on Thursday. The probe comes after prisoners in Unit 29 had to endure freezing temperatures without heat last month after a winter storm knocked out power, and officials struggled to fix the problem.

“They had no heat at all and had inmates in there,” Chaney said.

When asked what specific issues deputies were investigating, Chaney cited the winter storm response, fire code violations and “other problems.” Chaney said investigators have been formally looking into the issues “for at least 10 days,” but declined to say whether the probe is part of a broader investigation into Parchman, a prison in rural Sunflower County that has about 1,900 prisoners.

A prisoner in Parchman’s Unit 29, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution, told Mississippi Today that he saw two fire marshal officers with computer tablets recording throughout his building. A prisoner down the hall from him was told by a warden to pack up his belongings to transfer to another unit, the man said.

Unit 29 has been the subject of scrutiny from state and federal officials for years, with poor conditions and violence prompting outcry and litigation.

At the end of December 2020, riots broke out in Units 29 and 30, prompting the Mississippi Highway Patrol and multiple sheriff’s deputies to be called. Cellphone video from the inside showed fights and fires. By the time law enforcement quelled the violence, at least five prisoners were dead at Parchman and other correctional facilities. 

Pictures and footage have also emerged of run-down living areas cited in a 2022 Justice Department report finding that conditions at Parchman are unconstitutional . 

Gov. Tate Reeves vowed in his first State of the State address to shut Unit 29 down, but to date, it has remained open, with plans by Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain to make renovations and bring closed parts back online. 

Mark Lampton, a senior attorney with the Mississippi Insurance Department, told Mississippi Today deputies were at Unit 29 “gathering the facts and deciding” whether closing the unit would be justified, he said.

“So yes, it could happen, but we’re not saying anything is going to happen until we have all the facts,” he said.

Lampton said the fire marshal’s office had already found that Parchman violated fire codes, and the agency sent prison officials a letter asking if they’ve corrected the problem or have a plan for doing so in the future.

“My understanding is that there’s been no response,” Lampton said. “We try to go through a process and give people a chance, but we end up having to close a building down.”

A Mississippi Department of Corrections spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In an interview, House Corrections Committee Chairwoman Becky Currie, a Republican from Brookhaven, called for Unit 29 to be closed.

“Unit 29 has been uninhabitable for years. This is nothing new. There are holes in the ceiling. When it rains, water comes in. It’s got black mold. It had no heat during the ice storm and inmates had to build fires to stay warm. There was no fire alarm in the building that went off,” Currie said. “Now that we have a building that has had a fire in it, it’s past time that this building be shut down.”

In January, after temperatures plunged below freezing in an ice storm, Cain said a tree limb fell on a power line and took out power at the facility. Currie said prison officials told her they failed to check the generators at the prison before the ice storm.

Mississippi Today also obtained text messages from a Parchman guard, who wrote: “Most of their stuff doesn’t work. What does work is rigged up. They don’t have a maintenance team that actually knows what they are doing.”

The prisoner who spoke with Mississippi Today said he awoke during the storm to the lights flickering. He said that later, a fire was set down the hall from his cell. He said prisoners were trying to get the attention of correctional officers after the power went out.

Chaney said his agency has the “statutory authority” to close Unit 29 down, but would do so only as a last resort. He said he would prefer to work with the attorney general’s office and Cain to fix the unit, but a potential conflict with the corrections commissioner was also a concern.

“Once we pull the trigger on closing that unit down, let’s say that we’ve said you’ve got to close it down and the commissioner says no,” Chaney said. “Then you’ve got a real problem.”

Chaney did not offer a timeline for the investigation into Unit 29, but said it is ongoing.

As of 2024, Unit 29 housed about 700 people, according to records from the Mississippi Department of Corrections.

Mississippi Today reporters Mina Corpuz and Leonardo Bevilacqua contributed to this report.