From “Goon Squad” cops to Black residents secretly buried behind a jail, Mississippi’s criminal legal system has already come under scrutiny. In Lexington, 99% of people arrested are Black. And after she got arrested while filming a traffic stop in June 2023, civil rights attorney Jill Collen Jefferson flipped the script.
Jefferson refused the “opportunity” to pay a $35 processing fee in exchange for release. She already knew police falsified and destroyed evidence, gave out traffic tickets to maximize revenue, and disproportionately abused Black women. She wanted to see for herself what her clients had experienced.
While spending two nights in jail, Jefferson’s cellmates told stories of officers coercing women into sex to avoid arrest. In court, a 30-year-old judge who wasn’t even a member of the Mississippi bar found her guilty, only to rescind the charges days later.
Through her nonprofit, Jefferson compiled and reported years of injustices, from brutal beatings to people locked in hot police cars. And, like the stories that she heard while in jail, interviews and testimonials were crucial. By telling their stories and stacking evidence against the system, residents hoped to achieve justice for themselves and their community.
Small cities like Lexington, Mississippi, may not get much media attention. But Jefferson’s hands-on approach reminds us how critical it is to forge community with criminalized Black populations everywhere.