The U.S. Department of Justice will provide the Jackson Police Department and the Hinds County Coroner’s Office with technical assistance to improve both agencies’ death-notification policies, including training to locate next-of-kin, the federal agency announced Thursday.
“Families want and deserve transparency and the opportunity to make decisions about their loved ones’ burials,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement. Both the Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Mississippi will assist the agencies.
“Through technical assistance, we aim to ensure that officials are able to deliver death notifications and make decisions regarding burials in a timely and trauma-informed way that complies with federal civil-rights law,” Clarke continued.
‘They All Deserved Better’
The news comes months after both the Jackson Police Department and the Hinds County Coroner’s Office announced new death-notification policies following a series of NBC News reports in October of last year about seven families who say that their loved ones were buried at the Hinds County Penal Farm in Raymond, Miss., before any official ever contacted their next-of-kin to claim their bodies.
From left: Gretchen Hankins, Mary Moore Glenn and Bettersten Wade held a press conference with attorneys Ben Crump and Dennis Sweet III on Dec. 20, 2023, to demand justice for their sons, who were buried at the Hinds County Penal Farm without their knowledge. Photo by Shaunicy Muhammad
Pauper’s burials are typically used when officials have exhausted all efforts to contact a deceased person’s next-of-kin to claim their bodies or when a deceased person’s loved ones cannot afford to bury their loved one.
“The department is providing this technical assistance to JPD and the Hinds County Coroner’s Office pursuant to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI), which prohibits discrimination based on race, color and national origin in programs receiving federal financial assistance,” the DOJ release stated.
The federal government decided to assist the local agencies after news reports indicated a public perception that racial animus or other factors played a role in the burials, the press