The Southern Poverty Law Center has filed a lawsuit against a county sheriff’s office and state agency for failing to turn over public records about jail deaths.
In a complaint filed Tuesday in Hinds County Chancery Court, the legal organization argues the Hinds County Sheriff’s Department and the Mississippi Department of Public Safety violated the Mississippi Public Records Act by not responding to numerous requests for information about deaths at the Hinds County Detention Center in Raymond.
“The public has a right to know the extent to which deaths are occurring in the Hinds County detention facility and why,” Andrea Alajbegovic, senior staff attorney for the SPLC, said in a statement.
Hinds County Sheriff Tyree Jones said Tuesday afternoon that he was not familiar with the lawsuit and declined to comment. DPS spokeswoman Bailey Martin Holloway said the agency is aware of the complaint but declined to comment. As defendants, the sheriff’s office and DPS will have the opportunity to respond to the lawsuit in court filings.
Alajbegovic said there is not a full picture of the number of people who have died at the facility. News reporting generated existing data, based on information obtained from the Hinds County sheriff’s office and DPS, the lawsuit argues.
DPS has said at least five people died there between 2022 and April 2025, while local media have reported at least six deaths occurred at the same facility in 2025 alone.
Additionally, DPS is the state agency responsible for collecting data from all law enforcement offices about in-custody deaths through the federal Deaths in Custody Reporting Act. The lawsuit states the agency should have information about Hinds County’s jail deaths.
The lawsuit, which represents one side of a legal argument, is seeking a full and transparent account of all deaths at the Raymond jail since 2022. Once it has the data, the SPLC will review it and determine a course of action for the conditions of those held in detention facilities across the Deep South.
The Mississippi Public Records Act states that public bodies have seven working days to respond to a request. A written explanation is needed if they are unable to produce records within the timeframe.
Alajbegovic first submitted a public records request to the Hinds sheriff’s office in May 2025. Despite her and other SPLC staff following up by mail, phone and email, the office has not released the records nine months later, according to the lawsuit. DPS did not respond to a records request submitted earlier this month or a follow-up message after seven working days, according to the lawsuit.
The SPLC served a copy of the complaint to the Mississippi Ethics Commission, which handles complaints and issues orders involving alleged violations of the Public Records Act.
The Raymond Detention Center has been the subject of years-long legal action, including a federal consent decree to remedy unconstitutional conditions. Among those conditions was reducing the risk of violence to detainees and staff.
In 2021, U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves held the county in contempt twice for failing to fix the jail and follow the consent decree. That year seven people died in the facility, including from homicide and suicide.
The next year Reeves ordered a federal receiver to take control of the jail, but that person did not start work until late 2025 because the county appealed.
Around the same time, the county began building a new jail in Jackson. The first phase of that facility is expected to be complete in the fall.
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