Mississippi State Penitentiary
state prison in Sunflower County, Mississippi, United States
Mississippi State Penitentiary (MSP), also known as Parchman Farm, is a maximum-security prison farm located in the unincorporated community of Parchman in Sunflower County, Mississippi, in the Mississippi Delta region. Occupying about 28 square miles (73 km2) of land, Parchman is the only maximum security prison for men in the state of Mississippi, and is the state's oldest prison.
Begun with four stockades in 1901, the Mississippi Department of Corrections facility was constructed largely by state prisoners. It has beds for 4,840 inmates. Inmates work on the prison farm and in manufacturing workshops. It holds male offenders classified at all custody levels—A and B custody (minimum and medium security) and C and D custody (maximum security). It also houses the male death row—all male offenders sentenced to death in Mississippi state courts are held in MSP's Unit 29—and the state execution chamber. The superintendent of Mississippi State Penitentiary is Marshall Turner. There are two wardens, three deputy wardens, and two associate wardens.
Female prisoners are not usually assigned to MSP; Central Mississippi Correctional Facility, also the location of the female death row, was for a time the only state prison in Mississippi designated as a place for female prisoners.
The public source identifies “Mississippi State Penitentiary” as state prison in Sunflower County, Mississippi, United States. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Mississippi, State and Penitentiary.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Mississippi State Penitentiary”, the useful work is to connect “state prison in Sunflower County, Mississippi, United States” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1434347. VIAF identifies the subject as 143041666. The Library of Congress control number is n50083148. Authority coordinates are 33.932, -90.551. 3 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1901.
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Three-step research path
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This entry incorporates text from “Mississippi State Penitentiary” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.