Parchman Farm

About a mile from the Parchman front gate a sign on the highway warns, "No Stopping Next Two Miles - State Prison." Of course, I stopped at the gate, got out of the car and took pictures. Two guards who told me it wasn’t such a good idea to be taking pictures immediately ran me off. As I approached the gate, on that mile or so of highway, I could see buildings in the distance, across a vast cotton field, low-slung and sinister, ringed by ribbon wire. These were the "camps." There were fifteen of them and they consisted of dormitories (called The Cage) and various outbuildings, the laundry, a mechanical shop, a canning facility, etc. Through the main gate, and well into the compound, stood the Superintendent's House (known as Front Camp), shielded from view by a copse of trees. The job of Superintendent was a patronage appointment and, very early on, it was decided that the State needed "a farmer" not a "penologist" to run the place. Parchman was to be run at a profit. And it was. In 1908, four years after it opened, it showed a profit of $800 per man, woman and child in residence (children were indeed in residence at Parchman - records show that the Black Code was blind to age, with a six- year old girl serving five years for "stealing a hat" and a ten-year old boy serving life for murder). By 1917, Parchman Farm was the single largest revenue source for the State of Mississippi. It was big business.

But no longer. Parchman's acreage is now leased to farmers and cultivation is completely mechanized. Prisoner's no longer "work the long line" and are largely confined to barracks in the "camps" spread through the institution. The sight of the Shooters and the call-and-response rhythm of the Caller are no more. I drove quickly on and swung west on Highway 8.