Trusty system (prison)

The **trusty system** was a system that Mississippi State Penitentiary and other prisons used to control prisoners.  In the trusty system, some prisoners were given more power than others.  These trusties guarded the other prisoners.

The trusty system worked out well for prison officials because they did not have to pay civilian (non-prisoner) guards to control the prisoners.  However, the trusties kept the other prisoners under control through physical abuse, torture, fear, and .  Finally, in 1974, a federal court ruled that the trusty system, and the whole prison, were  the United States Constitution by giving out cruel and unusual punishments.  This ruling ordered the trusty system to be shut down.  Mississippi law said that the prison had to pay for itself  *and* make a profit for the state.  In other words, the prison had to pay for everything it needed itself, *and* make money for the state.  This hurt other local businesses, which did have to pay their workers and other costs.

The prison warden controlled the prison completely.  Nobody from outside of the prison ever came in to see what was going on.  Because of this, nobody outside the prison knew what Parchman was really like.  For example, in 1911, the *New York Times* wrote an article congratulating the Mississippi prison system for figuring out how to keep people in prison and make money at the same time.  Also, because no outsiders ever came into Parchman, the conditions and abuse at the prison changed very little from the time it opened in 1903 until the *Gates v. Collier* case forced it to change.

The prison had  approximately  of good farmland.  Two-thirds were black.  Black and white inmates were kept apart.  This meant there were about 13 inmates for every staff member.  There just were not enough staff members to guard the prisoners, make the prison work every day, take care of the farm, and do everything else they needed to do.

With so few staff members, the inmates did all the farm work.  Also, with so few guards, inmate trusties did most of the guardian and punishing other prisoners.  Trusties also did most of the paperwork, office work, and cleaning.  Basically, the trusties ran the prison system.

### Abuse of prisoners
In the trusty system, some trusties had more power than others.  The most powerful were the "trusty shooters."

Very few people  what the trusty shooters did.  For example, the farm's camps of black inmates were supervised by one white sergeant.  Under him, black trusty shooters, who were serving sentences for murder, carried rifles and enforced discipline.

## End of the system
For years, there were protests over Parchman's abuse of prisoners' civil rights.  Eventually, a civil rights lawyer named Roy Haber began to collect evidence of the abuse.

* Beatings
* Shooting at or around prisoners, sometimes hitting them
* Taking away prisoners' clothes
* Turning fans on prisoners while they were naked and wet
* Not giving inmates food, mattresses, or items for hygiene
* Handcuffing prisoners to fences or bars
* Using a cattle prod on prisoners
* Forcing prisoners to stand for long periods of time
* Putting inmates in stress positions (positions that are painful)

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Parchman to end its trusty program; racial segregation at the prison; and all other cruel, unusual, and unconstitutional practices immediately.  However, some states, like Texas, continued to use trusty systems (renamed "building tenders") until the 1980s, when Federal Judge William Wayne Justice, in the case of *Ruiz v. Estelle*, 503 F. Supp. 1265 (S.D. Tex. 1980), ordered Texas to end the system.

## Related pages
* *Gates v. Collier*

## References