Criminal Justice & Parchman Penitentiary (Archives): Publications

The following publications are available in Special Collections. Most of the volumes focus either in part or in whole on Mississippi.

                                             

 

W.B. Alexander, ed. The Lash [1951]. Call for prison reform in Mississippi. Call Number: HV8772 A4.

Thomas Michael Alonzo. “Relationship between Self-Esteem and Imputations of Work Supervisors for Correctional Clients in a Mississippi Community-Based Work Facility.” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Southern Mississippi, 1980. Call Number: HV9475 M7 A46.

Lori Andrews. Black Power/White Blood: The Life and Times of Johnny Spain. New York: Pantheon Books, 1996. Born in 1949 to a white mother and a black father in Mississippi, Spain ends up in prison for murder and becomes the leader of the Black Panther’s prison movement. Call Number: E185.97 S7 A53.

Argument of George R. Clayton, for Appellant. High Court of Errors and Appeals, April Term, 1860. Caleb, a Slave of Wm. Kidd, Appellant, Versus the State of Mississippi, Respondent. Appellant Indicted for the Crime of Murder. Columbus, MS: Mississippi Democrat Power Press, 1860. Call Number: JK4682 C3.

Arguments of W.L. Nugent, S.S. Calhoun and W.P. Harris, of Counsel for Jones S. Hamilton, L.M. Eubanks, Wm. Hardy, J.W. Albrechtand, W.H. Figures, Charged with Murder of R.D. Gambrell, on Their Petition for the Writ of Habeus Corpus. Before Chancellor E.G. Peyton. 1887. Mississippi case. Call Number: JK4684 C3 H3.

Samuel Arnold.  Defence and Prison Experiences of a Lincoln Conspirator:  Statements and Autobriographical Notes.  Hattiesburg, MS:  Book Farm, 1943.  Call Number:  Z1302 H4 no.66.

David Rankin Barbee.  Dr. Craven's "Prison Life of Jefferson Davis": An Expose.  Richmond, VA: Tyler's Quarterly Historical and Geneaological Magazine, 1951.  Call Number:  E464.1 D26 C92.

A. Roy Beasley. In Prison . . . And Visited Me. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdman, 1952. Memoir of the Parchman State Prison chaplain. Call Number: BV4465 B36.

Leonard J. Berry. Prison. New York: Grossman Publishers, 1972. Part of James H. Meredith Collection. Call Number: HV9471 B45 1972.

Brief of James T. Harrison, and Meek & Sims, in the Supreme Court of Mississippi in the Case of Joseph N. Eskridge, Plaintiff in Error, vs. the State of Mississippi, Defendant in Error. From the Circuit Court of Noxubee County. Columbus, MS: Excelsior Book and Job Office, 1875. Murder trial. Call Number: JK4683 H3 E8.

Brief of Meek & Sims in the Supreme Court of the State of Mississippi, in the Case of James Johnson, Plaintiff in Error, vs. the State of Mississippi. In Error from the Circuit Court of Oktibbeha County. Plaintiff in Error Indicted for the Crime of Murder. Columbus, MS: Excelsior Book and Job Office, 1871. Call Number: JK4682 J6.

Frank Browning. Prison Life: A Study of the Explosive Conditions in America’s Prisons. New York: Harper & Row, 1972. Call Number: HV9471 P75 1972.

Heard Wylie Butler. “Penal Reform in Mississippi 1799-1839.” M.A. Thesis, University of Mississippi, 1983.

Donald A. Cabana. Death at Midnight: The Confession of an Executioner. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1996. Includes Mississippi case studies of the executions of Edward Earl Johnson and Connie Ray Evans. Call Number: HV8694 C225 1996.

Sim C. Callon and Carolyn Vance Smith. The Goat Castle Murder: A True Natchez Story that Shocked the World. Natchez, MS: Plantation Publishing, 1985. Call Number: F349 N2 C3395.

Will D. Campbell and James Y. Holloway, eds. “And the Criminals with Him...” Lk 23:33: A First-Person Book about Prisons. New York: Paulist Press, 1972. Includes an essay entitled “Children in Parchaman.” Call Number: HV9471 C25.

Marie Haven Carlton, ed. Tate County, Mississippi Jail Docket. Senatobia, MS: Tate County Mississippi Genealogical and Historical Society, 1991. Tate County jail docket from 1874 to 1892. Call Number: F347 T35 C36 1991.

Ralph Chaplin.  Bars and Shadows:  The Prison Poems.  New York:  Leonard Press, 1922.  Call Number:  PS3505 H37 B3 1922.

Joseph Dawson Cooke Jr.  "A History and Analysis of Prisoner Education in Mississippi."  Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Mississippi, 1990.

Richard C. Cortner. A “Scottsboro” Case in Mississippi: The Supreme Court and Brown v. Mississippi. Jackson: University of Mississippi, c.1986. The 1934 case of three black defendants indicted, tried, convicted, and sentenced to death within one week for the murder of a white planter in Kemper County, Mississippi. An appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court resulted in the landmark Brown v. Mississippi decision. Call Number: KF224 B76 C67 1986.

John J. Craven.  Prison Life of Jefferson Davis:  Embracing Details and Incidents in His Captivity, Particulars Concerning His Health and Habits, Together with Many Conversations of Great Public Interest.  Biloxi, MS:  Souvenir Shop, Jefferson Davis Shrine, 1960.  Call Number:  E467.1 D26 C73 1960.

R.H. Crozier. The Bloody Junto; or, The Escape of John Wilkes Booth. A Story Containing Many Interesting Particulars in Regard to the Trial and Execution of Mrs. Suratt and Other So-Called Conspirators. Little Rock: Woodruff & Blocher, 1869. Call Number: PS1473 C85 B4.

Hugh Harris Daniel.  "A Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Vocational Training School at the Mississippi State Penitentiary."  Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Mississippi, 1984. 

Juliet Wilkins Dantin. “The Effect of Capital Punishment Attitude on Jury Verdict.” M.A Thesis, University of Mississippi, 1981.

R. Theodore Davidson.  Chicano Prisoners:  The Key to San Quentin.  New York:  Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1974.  Part of the James Meredith Collection.  Call Number:  HV9475 C3 D38 1974.

Bobby DeLaughter. Never Too Late: A Prosecutor’s Story of Justice in the Medgar Evers Case. New York: Scribner, 2001. Call Number: KF224 B34 D45 2001.

Dorothy Pinckard DeSelle. “Higher Education Opportunities in the State Prison Systems of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Mississippi, 1996.

Chiara Difrancesco. “Dermal Body Language Among Prison Inmates: The Multiple-Unprofessional Tattoo.” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Mississippi, 1990.

W.O. “Chet” Dillard. Caveats from the Bench: Constitutional Warnings from a Mississippi Judge. Jackson, MS: Quality Printing Co., 1994. Call Number: E185.93 M6 D5394 1994.

L.C. Dorsey, Cold Steel. Jackson, MS: Dorseys, Inc., c.1982. Poems and prose by a woman who grew up a few miles from Mississippi’s Parchman State Penitentiary and who served as a staff representative of the Southern Coalition on Jails and Prisons in Mississippi. Call Number: HV9475 M7 D67 1982.

H.W. Ellzey. High Flight from Hell. New York: Vantage Press, 1990. Prison discipline. Call Number: HV9471 E45 1990.

William J. Farmar. The Delta Prisons: Punishment for Profit. Atlanta: Southern Regional Council, c.1968. Prisons in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Call Number: HV9475 A92 S6.

D. Michael Featherston. A Comparative Analysis of American Bar Association Standards for the Administration of Criminal Justice with Mississippi Law. University, MS: University Extension, 1973. Call Number: KFM7162 F4.

Harvey Fireside. The “Mississippi Burning” Civil Rights Murder Conspiracy Trial: A Headline Court Case. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow Publishers, 2002. Call Number: KF224 M47 F57 2002.

Paul B. Foreman and Julien R. Tatum. The Short History of Mississippi’s State Penal Systems (reprint from Mississippi Law Journal of April 1928). Call Number: HV8929 M72 F6.

Anthony Foster. History of the Arrest of Gen’l Foster, for the Murder of Dr. A.M. Settle, Containing the Journal of Gen’l Foster while in Prison, the Proceedings of the Trial, Arguments of Counsel, etc. Memphis, TN: Daily Appeal Book and Job Office, 1868. Call Number: E664 F72 H5.

Barry Gildea. “Estranged Fruit: Making and Unmaking in Mississippi’s Jails.” M.A. Thesis, University of Mississippi, 1995.

Carolyn Haines. My Mother’s Witness: The Peggy Moran Story. Montgomery, AL: River City Publishing, 2003. Concerns the trial of Byron de la Beckwith for the murder of Medgar Evers. Call Number: HQ1438 M7 H35 2003.

Stanton A. Hall. Experiences of a Trial Judge. Hattiesburg, MS: 1975. Circuit judge, 12th Judicial District, State of Mississippi 1959 to 1975. Call Number: KFM7125 H3 1975.

Jones S. Hamilton. Statement of Hamilton, Hoskins & Co., Lessees of the Mississippi State Penitentiary. Jackson, MS: 1886. Call Number: HV8344 M73 1886.

David Hanna. “’Walking the Last Mile’: A Historical Overview of Capital Punishment in Mississippi.” M.A. Thesis, University of Mississippi, 2000.

Laura Ann Hebert. “The Court, Legislators, and Juvenile Capital Punishment.” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Mississippi, 1994.

Columbus B. Hopper. Sex in Prison: The Mississippi Experiment with Conjugal Visiting. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1969. Call Number: HV9475 M72 P35.

Columbus B. Hopper. “A Study of Conjugal Visiting, Social Organization, and Prisonization in the Mississippi State Penitentiary.” M.A. Thesis, Florida State University, 1964. Call Number: HV8751 H6.

H.R. Howard. The History of Virgil A. Stewart and His Adventure in Capturing and Exposing the Great “Western Land Pirate” and His Gang, In Connection with the Evidence: Also of the Trials, Confessions, and Execution of a Number of Murrell’s Associates in the State of Mississippi during the Summer of 1835, and the Execution of Five Professional Gamblers by the Citizens of Vicksburg, on the 6th July, 1835. Spartanburg, SC: Reprint Company, 1976. Call Number: F341 H696 1836a.

Edward Hume. Mississippi Mud: A True Story from a Corner of the Deep South. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Murder in Biloxi, Mississippi. Call Number: HV6534 B47 H85 1994.

Marvin Lee Hutson. “Mississippi’s State Penal System.” M.A. Thesis, University of Mississippi, 1939.

Inside World. Parchman, MS: Mississippi State Penitentiary. Published by the inmates: “Its purpose is to give the inmate body an opportunity for self-expression, and to provide a medium of exchange for the views of society and the prisoner.” Special Collections has volume 1 (1949-50). Volumes from 1949-1981 are in Government Documents. Call Number: HV8301 M5 I5.

Guy Jack. Captain Guy Jack’s Iconoclast: Being an Exposure of Hypocritical Christians and Corrupt Jews, of Murder, Arson, Robbery, Perjury, Forgery, and Bribery of Officials and Private Citizens in Kemper and Adjacent Counties in Mississippi, Whose Efforts Have Been to Defeat Justice – All Graphically Disclosed by the Author. New Orleans: Louisiana Printing Company, c.1919. Call Number: CT275 J25 A3.

Carolyn Austin Jones. “A Survey of Perceived Needs of Adult Education Faculty at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman.” Ed.D. Thesis, University of Southern Mississippi, 1978. Call Number: HV8875 J65.

Frances Joseph-Gaudet. “He Leadeth Me.” New Orleans: Louisiana Printing Co., c.1913. African Americans and Louisiana prisons. Call Number: CT3203 G38.

Martin Luther King Jr.  Letter from Birmingham City Jail.  Philadelphia: American Friends Service Committee, 1963.  Call Number:  E185.61 K534.

Ethridge Knight.  Poems from Prison. Detroit:  Broadside Press, 1968.  Call Number:  PS3561 N45 P6.

Bonnie J. Krause, ed. Memories of Mississippi. University, MS: University Museums, 1994. Contains recollection of George Rives Jr. entitled “Christmas Day at Parchman.” Call Number: F341 M53 1994.

Bridget Elizabeth Malone. “An Examination of Hugo Bedau’s Views on Capital Punishment.” M.A. Thesis, University of Mississippi, 1988.

Taylor H. McElroy. Mississippi Evidence: Civil, Criminal, and Equity: A Handbook of Principles and Rules of Mississippi Evidence as Set out by Mississippi Statutes, and Adopted by Our Courts with Most of the Cases Cited to Date… Atlanta: Harrison Co., c.1955. Call Number: KFM7140 M24.

Thomas McNeely Jr. and Peter Buttross Jr, eds.  Beyond the Bars: An Anthology of Poetry and Prose from a Mississippi Prison.   Natchez, MS:  Red Dawn Press, 2004.  Wilkinson County Correctional Facility in Woodville, Mississippi.  Call Number:  PS508 P7 B49 2004.

R.N. Miller. Needed Reforms in the Criminal Law and Procedure in the State, by R.N. Miller of Hazlehurst, Miss. A Paper Read before the Annual Meeting of the Bar Association of Mississippi at West Point, Miss., May 3rd, 1909. Call Number: HV7431 M7 M5.

The Mississippi Almanac.  (Jacinto, MS:  M.A. Simmons).  Special Collections has th 1856 edition of this court calendar for the state.  Call Number:  AY216 M5.

Mississippi. Legislature.  Resolutions of the Legislature of the State of Mississippi in Relation to the Recent Act of the Congress of the Confederate States Suspending the Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus.  [Richmond, 1864].  Call Number:  E487 C755.

Mississippi State Penitentiary Yearbook, 1989. Parchman, MS: Mississippi Department of Corrections, 1989. Contains statistics and reports. Call Number: HV9475 M72 A2.

Dennis Mitchell and Nancy D. Hargrove. Trials. Jackson: Mississippi Committee for the Humanities, 1986. Discusses the trial of Byron de La Beckwith. Call Number: KF224 B42 M5 1986.

John Mitchel.  Jail Journal, or, Five Years in British Prisons.  New York:  Office of the "Citizen," 1854.  Call Number:  DA952 M6 A3 1854.

Pat Morrison. A Hanging in Perry County: The James Copeland Story, His Life and Death. c.1999. Copeland was hung in 1857. Call Number: F296 C67 M67 1999.

Adam Nossiter. Of Long Memory: Mississippi and the Murder of Medgar Evers. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1994. Call Number: F350 N4 N67 1994.

David M. Oshinsky. Worse than Slavery: Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice. New York: Free Press, 1996. Call Number: HV9475 M72 M576 1996.

The Parchman Trials. Mississippi ETV, 1978. Documentary on video tape of conditions at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman. Call Number: HV9475 M7 P37 1980.

J.R.S. Pitts. Life and Confessions of the Noted Outlaw James Copeland. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1980. Facsimile of the 1909 edition with a new introduction. The Copeland gang rampaged through south Alabama and Mississippi during the 1830s and 1840s, ending in James Copeland’s hanging in 1857. Call Number: E415.9 C73 P5 1980.

Poetry by the Residents of the Cook County Department of Corrections: at the Jail, House of Corrections, Women's Correctional Center.  Chicago:  Chicago Public Library, 1975.  Call Number:  PS3508 P7 P64 1975.

Poetry of Prison: Poems by Black Prisoners.  Chicago:  DuSable Museum of African-American History, 1972.  Call Number:  PS508 P7 P6 1972.

Proceedings of the Annual Congress of the American Prison Association. Special Collections has the volume for the 1925 Congress which took place in Jackson, Mississippi; volumes for other years are in the Main Library. Call Number: HV8987 A1 A12.

Editors of Ramparts Magazine and Frank Browning. Prison Life: A Study of the Explosive Conditions in America’s Prisons. New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1972. Call Number: HV9471 P75 1972.

Chaplain Ray. God’s Prison Gang. Dallas, TX: American Evangelistic Association, 1977. Church work with prisoners. Call Number: BV4340 C46.

Report of the Senate Standing Committee on Penitentiary and Prisons, Submitted February 18, 1886. Jackson, MS: R.H. Henry, 1886. Bound with this volume is “Mississippi Penitentiary Lease, Exhibits of Contracts and Settlements.” Call Number: HV8344 M5.

Johnnie Sartor, Jr. “Allocation of Resources for Maximum Economic Efficiency on the Mississippi Penitentiary Farm.” Ph.D., Mississippi State University, 1974. Call Number: HV9475 M72 P85 1974.

Morris U. Schappes. Letters from the Tombs. New York: Schappes Defense Committee, c.1941. Introduction by Richard Wright. Call Number: HV9481 N62 S3.

Ivan Solotaroff. The Last Face You’ll Ever See: The Private Life of the American Death Penalty. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2001. Examines the personal lives of executioners and the men they put to death. Includes several chapters on Mississippi. Call Number: HV8696 S65 2001.

Southern Regional Council. The Delta Prisons: Punishment for Profit. Atlanta, GA: Southern Regional Council, [1968]. Discusses Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas. Call Number: HV9475 A92 S6.

Williams Banks Taylor. Brokered Justice: Race, Politics, and Mississippi Prisons, 1798-1992. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1993. Call Number: HV9475 M7 T39 1993.

William Banks Taylor. Down on Parchman Farm: The Great Prison in the Mississippi Delta. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1999. Call Number: HV9475 M7 T394 1999.

Twelve High. Parchman, MS: Alcoholics Anonymous. A journal published by the Alcoholics Anonymous at Mississippi State Penitentiary. Special Collections has copies from August 1958 through June 1959. Call Number: HV8301 T49.

Maryanne Vollers. Ghosts of Mississippi: The Murder of Medgar Evers, the Trials of Byron de la Beckwith, and the Haunting of the New South. Boston: Little, Brown, 1995. Call Number: F349 J13 V65 1995.

Robert Scott Walton. “Dogmatism, Self Concept, Vocational and General Education, and Recidivism in the Mississippi State Corrections System.” Ph.D., University of Southern Mississippi, 1978. Call Number: HV9305 M7 W34.

W.S.M. Wilkinson. Trial of E.M. Yerger, before a Military Commission for the Killing of Bv’t-Col. Joseph G. Crane, at Jackson, Miss., June 8th, 1869. Including Testimony of All the Witnesses; Arguments... Jackson, MS: Clarion Book and Job Printing, 1869. Call Number: HV6533 M7 W5.

Sally Wolff with Floyd C. Watkins.  Talking about William Faulkner:  Interviews with Jimmy Faulkner and Others.  Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1996.  Includes a section on the Oxford, Mississippi jail.  Call Number:  PS3511 A86 Z78285 1996.

Digital Collections

For assistance with non-archival resources, see the main library's Criminal Justice Subject Guide.

The Archives & Special Collections hosts the following online exhibits with content on crime:

"Murder with Southern Hospitality:  An Exhibition of Mississippi Mysteries"

"Civil Rights, Mississippi, and the Novelist's Craft"

The library has created a searchable database on its Mississippi Newspaper holdings.  Search by text, year, city, or county to find newspaper titles, time span in the library's possession, and a link to the catalog record.