Jackson Free Press

JACKSON, Miss. (AP)—Mississippi's prison system used tax dollars to buy massage chairs, Himalayan salt lamps and a bedroom set and illegally paid some employees for extra work time they had accumulated, the state's auditor said in a scathing report that found widespread misspending at the agency while it struggled to fill jobs for guards and was plagued by violence.

"It is infuriating to see such waste when more money needs to be spent on the frontline corrections officers and directly in Mississippi’s prisons,” State Auditor Shad White said in a statement.

The massage chairs and salt lamps were among thousands of dollars spent for meditation rooms at prison facilities, according to the audit released on Thursday. It looked at spending by the department's previous leadership.

The bed along with a dresser and bedroom set were for a prison warden.

Auditors said previous leaders of the Mississippi Department of Corrections also approved unauthorized lump sum buyouts for extra work hours that are normally taken as time off. The highest buyouts, auditors found, were reserved for those making salaries over $100,000, the Clarion Ledger reported. Overall, it found that hundreds of thousands of dollars had been misspent, including on improper travel reimbursements.

“This audit shows how a pervasive lack of spending controls can have devastating effects on real people,” White said. “I’m appalled at what this audit showed. The state must fix this, and now.”

The wasteful spending occurred while the department struggled with violence at its prisons. Officials with the state Department of Corrections have said for years that it’s difficult to find people to work as guards because of low pay, long hours and dangerous conditions.

Following a string of inmate deaths, the U.S. Justice Department said in February that it was investigating conditions at four Mississippi prisons to see whether state corrections officials are adequately protecting prisoners from physical harm and providing ample health care and suicide prevention services.

The audit looked at spending from July 2017 through December 2019, the Clarion Ledger reported. It was requested by the department’s new administrators.

It also found that accounting records had been burned or destroyed, which limited evidence of many agency purchases, and inmates at restitution centers were not being informed when they had worked enough to fully repay what they owed.

Some of the findings will be given to the investigations division of the auditor’s office while others have been forwarded to federal authorities, the auditor's office said in a news release.