
Mukta Joshi
Contributor at Freelance
occasional lawyer, photojournalist & investigative reporter. currently @MississippiCIR. previously @nlsiuofficial & @columbiajourn. she/her.
Articles
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1 week ago |
mississippitoday.org | Mukta Joshi
Hezekiah Watkins was 13 when he was arrested in 1961 for entering a white-only Greyhound bus station in Jackson, sent to state prison and housed on death row. Watkins said Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest reminded him of his own experience.
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3 weeks ago |
mississippitoday.org | Steph Quinn |Mukta Joshi
The lawyer for Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey defended the sheriff’s use of trusties on his family’s chicken farm, saying it was part of an inmate work program authorized by statute. But four trusties who said they worked at the farm were released from the Rankin County Detention Center before 2021, when the only statute governing a work program for jail inmates was passed.
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3 weeks ago |
mississippitoday.org | Mukta Joshi |Steph Quinn
Anthony Burt still remembers the day he became a “blue suit.”When Burt was jailed in Rankin County in 2017 on methamphetamine possession charges, he said he had never heard of the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department’s lauded work program for trusted inmates, or “trusties.” But when an acquaintance in the program told Burt it could make his life in jail easier, he became determined to work his way to the top tier of male trusties, who wear blue uniforms and enjoy additional privileges in the jail.
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3 weeks ago |
rawstory.com | Steph Quinn |Mukta Joshi
State Auditor to Investigate Sheriff Who Used Inmate Labor on Family FarmReporters for Mississippi Today worked in partnership with The New York Times Local Investigations Fellowship. The Mississippi State Auditor’s office on Friday said it had launched an investigation into allegations that Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey had staffed his mother’s commercial chicken farm with jail inmates who were in his custody.
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3 weeks ago |
mississippitoday.org | Mukta Joshi |Steph Quinn
This story was done in partnership with The New York Times Local Investigations FellowshipState Auditor Shad White has initiated an investigation into allegations that Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey used jail inmates to work on his family’s chicken farm south of Puckett, a representative of the auditor’s office confirmed Friday.
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