No Box for Justice: Inside Mississippi’s Broken Prison Grievance System

The Call That Said Everything

When I dialed the Mississippi Department of Corrections commissioner’s office, I expected professionalism, maybe even urgency. What I got instead was a bureaucratic echo chamber.

“This is the commissioner’s office,” the woman said.
I explained the problem — a constitutional one — about inmates at Delta Correctional Facility being denied access to grievance forms and ILAP requests. When I finished, she cut me off:
“I need to send you to the commissioner’s office.”

That’s when it hit me: in Mississippi’s corrections system, even accountability has to be forwarded.

I made it clear who I was — Don Matthews with We the People News — and that the story would run by five o’clock if Commissioner Burl Cain didn’t call me back. Only then did her tone shift. The room on the other end of the line seemed to wake up.

“I’ll have someone look into it,” she finally said.
“That’s what the people need to hear,” I told her.

And that’s where this story begins.

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The Reports from Inside

Multiple sources from Delta Correctional have told me the same thing: there’s no grievance box. No ILAP box. No confidential way for an inmate to file a request or complaint.

Instead, if an inmate wants to report abuse or mistreatment, they to hand the form to a guard — possibly the very guard they are reporting. That isn’t procedure; that’s intimidation by design.

Mail? Same story. No mailbox. No locked drop point. The only “system” is giving it directly to a corrections officer on night shift.

One inmate put it simply:

“They say we can grieve, but we can’t even drop the paper.”

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What the Law Says

The law isn’t vague on this. In Bounds v. Smith (1977), the U.S. Supreme Court held that prisons must provide inmates with “meaningful access to the courts.” That includes the right to file grievances and legal assistance requests.

Two decades later, in Lewis v. Casey (1996), the Court reaffirmed that right — and made clear that when prison officials obstruct it, they violate the First Amendment.

Then there’s Farmer v. Brennan (1994), which established that officials who show “deliberate indifference” to known risks or constitutional violations can be held liable under the Eighth Amendment.

So when MDOC ignores reports that inmates have no safe way to file grievances, that’s not a paperwork problem. That’s a constitutional one.

Even MDOC’s own internal policy — Administrative Remedy Program (ARP), Policy 20-08 — mandates accessible, confidential grievance procedures. “Confidential” doesn’t mean slipping a form to a guard who controls your daily life.

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The Bureaucratic Deflection

When I raised these issues, the response from the commissioner’s office was not outrage, not even concern — just redirection.

“I can’t comment on that… I’ll have someone look into it.”
“He’s not in the office right now.”

The tone was polite, careful, professional — the kind of tone that gets people through their workday but never fixes anything.

If you listen closely to the call, you can hear something more subtle: a system that’s learned to protect itself. Every question gets rerouted. Every responsibility diluted. By the time it’s “looked into,” the problem has already gone quiet again.

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The Cost of Silence

What’s happening at Delta Correctional isn’t unique — it’s just quieter there. At Parchman, the neglect made headlines. At Delta, it hides behind procedure.

A grievance system that doesn’t function is more than a missing box; it’s a message. It tells the men inside that their voices don’t count. It tells the guards they can act without oversight. And it tells the public that “corrections” in Mississippi still means control, not rehabilitation.

One source told me she’d never had a problem at Delta but didn’t want to be retaliated against for speaking up. That line alone says it all: when the fear of retaliation outweighs the faith in justice, the Constitution becomes a ghost in its own house.

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What Comes Next

As of publication, Commissioner Burl Cain has not returned my call. His office did say they would “look into the ILA procedure” at Delta Correctional Facility.

Looking is one thing. Fixing is another.

The Constitution doesn’t take weekends off, and it doesn’t stop at the prison gate. If the State of Mississippi is serious about justice, it can start by giving its inmates something simple — a locked box, a piece of paper, and the right to be heard without fear.