The Parchman State Penitentiary is considered to be one of the oldest detention institutions in the US. It indeed the first prison to be built in the Mississippi state back in the early 20th century. However, despite the traditional role it has played in the overall institutional system it is not, in its turn, deprived of controversy, which in the end builds up to one important issue that splits the American society: the rightfulness of the death penalty. As a result of its longtime activity, the Parchman State Penitentiary has become and it is viewed nowadays as a symbol of the conflict surrounding the sensitive issue of the morality of the death row.
             Its history is quite log, but, despite it all it is rather poor in missing details. In the early 1900's the Mississippi State Legislature purchased a considerable amount of land, 8,000 acres of land in the Sunflower County, whereas today it has a surface of around 18,000 acres. In the beginning, it was called the Parchman Farm, as the benefices and profit were made at the expense of those placed in the service of the state to carry on their sentence. The name came is in fact that of the first warden to take charge of the business of the prison, J.M. "Jim" Parchman. (Cabana, 2004)
             The convicts were often put to work the fields in order to raise cotton and even vegetables and different sorts of fruits. However, due to the specific characteristics of the county, the Parchman County being a well known area for its agricultural potential, most often, the then called convicts were put to work in the cotton business, cultivation of soybeans. At the same time, they were regularly considered for works involving the production of livestock, swine, poultry and milk.
             The institution in itself represented a symbol of its time. In the beginning it was quite obvious that the allocation of chores and duties was unevenly distributed, and most often, black inmates would suffer gre...