Word: parchman
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...prosperous Delta cotton planter, onetime director of the state's segregationist White Citizens' Council, and a reform-minded penologist. Several years ago, as a member of the Mississippi Senate and chairman of its penitentiary committee, he became dedicated to trying to make over the state prison at Parchman, a grim, swampy place noted for its liberal use of the lash. "I had a lot of ideas about prison reform," says Jones, "but they were either killed or watered down next to nothing in the legislature. I figured the only way I could get some of them into practice...
Under Jones, the Mississippi convict's lot became better-much better. Out went the lash-long known as "Black Annie." Jones permitted Parchman's prisoners to receive their wives in cottages on conjugal visits. He organized a hillbilly band to amuse his wards. He broadened an understandably popular travel-and-furlough program for trustworthy prisoners. There were, of course, some setbacks. Example: a convicted murderer returned on furlough to his home town, and his wife asked local authorities to keep her in jail until her husband went back to Parchman...
Then last March came the case of Dale ("Cowboy") Morris, 36, serving a twelve-year sentence for manslaughter. In Parchman, Morris had behaved himself and become a trusty; he also displayed considerable interest in furthering Warden Jones's reform program. Back at Fort Smith, Ark., he told Jones, he owned a fine stud horse whose services he would gladly contribute to Parchman's animal farm. With written permission from Governor Barnett, Jones sent Morris, along with two guards, off to fetch the horse. The guards and the horse came back. Morris didn't, and not until last...
...album tells a lot about it. The selections-Carnival, Mojo Woman, Crepuscular Air-have an engaging funky, blues-flavored quality, abetted by some light and witty Allison solo flights on the piano. Among the most successful is a swinging, wryly humorous ballad about a misunderstood wife-slayer at "the Parchman Farm" who passes his time "puttin' that cotton in a 'leven foot sack/With a 12-gauge shotgun at [his] back...
...Hogjaw posed proudly, cigarette dangling from his lips, deputies rushed up to arrest the killers and photographers to record the stirring scene. Said Hogjaw, with an old con's bland and innocent eye: "I did it because I want to be something more than just a number at Parchman." There was no guarantee that he would be released because of his big feat, but there would probably be.more opportunities and it seemed only a question of time. Hogjaw, who had also shot (but only wounded) another fleeing prisoner last August, was obviously the type of man that some Mississippi...