Lexington, Miss. is a small town of about 1,200 residents located in Holmes County, one of the poorest counties in the state, as well as the nation. With a median household income of roughly $39,000 — about half the national average — many residents are barely getting by.

Despite this poverty, our investigation found that Lexington’s police department funds its very existence by imposing and collecting fines for petty offenses allegedly committed by the city’s low-income residents and the few people passing through this small town about 15 miles from the nearest interstate.

The city and its police department raise these funds by first imposing fines at nearly every available opportunity, sometimes for minor violations. For example, one man was fined $224.25 for public profanity and had to pay $140 before the Lexington police department would release him from custody.

Then the city collects those fines through unlawful means. Specifically, without making the required assessment of whether a person has the ability to pay. Lexington police unlawfully arrest, jail, and continue to detain people until they come up with the money to pay the fines they owe.

Our investigation found one woman who came to the police station to give a statement in a murder investigation was arrested for her old fines.

Another man was arrested for trespassing. He spent five days in jail until he could pay $200 toward an old fine. That wasn’t good enough. Lexington jailed him for five more days until he paid a $50 processing fee.

In effect, Lexington has turned the jail into the kind of debtors’ prisons Charles Dickens described in his novels written in the 1800s. Only this is happening in Mississippi in 2024.

This scheme bears fruit for the city and its police force, and a bitter harvest for its residents. The police department takes up a large percentage of the city’s expenditures — almost 40% in 2022 — but that is still not enough to pay for the approximately 10 officers. The police used this unconstitutional scheme to collect fines that funded almost a quarter of the department’s budget. Yet people still owe Lexington over $1.7 million in fines. That’s about $1,400 for every man, woman, and child in town.

And the Lexington police department’s unconstitutional policing does not just end with how it collects fines. Our investigation found that Lexington police use excessive force and conduct unlawful stops, searches, and arrests.

The City also arrested and fined people for using profanity, which the Supreme Court clearly held unconstitutional over 50 years ago. In one instance, Lexington police arrested a young man for profanity even after he reminded the officers that he had freedom of speech. Adding insult to injury, the arresting officer used the same profanity while making the arrest.

We even found occasions when residents were held in custody for unlawful “investigative holds” without being charged with any crime. Detaining innocent people for “investigation” is common in authoritarian regimes, but it is not legal in the United States.

In one such unconstitutional “investigative hold,” two Lexington police officers — one of them in a leadership position — held an African American woman in jail for almost two days without filing any charge and tried to coerce her into sex in exchange for her freedom.

Worse yet, we found that unconstitutional abuses happen disproportionately to African Americans, who make up about 75% of Lexington’s population. And this trend has only gotten worse in recent years. For example, our investigation found that in 2019, Black people were 2.5 times more likely to be arrested by Lexington police than white people.  But by 2022, Black people were 12 times more likely to be arrested. In 2023, Black people were 17.6 times more likely to be arrested than white people.

These findings are troubling. As I said when this investigation was first launched, all of us in Mississippi and throughout the nation want to feel safe in our homes and in public.  But we want that safety to be obtained fairly and legally, not through illegal force or abuse of power.

It is no excuse that Lexington is a small town and has limited funds. The Constitution applies in every place in America, no matter how small or poor. Lexington’s police force must be funded legally, and its officers must follow the law and treat people fairly.

Let me add that as the department has conducted this investigation, we have heard troubling accounts that many of the unlawful policing practices used in Lexington may also be applied in other small towns in Mississippi. I urge every police chief, mayor, sheriff, and public official involved in law enforcement in Mississippi — and indeed in this nation — to read the department’s report. Gone are the days when rural isolation and remoteness could conceal the injustice of unconstitutional policing. Make changes now if your agency is policing in these same unlawful ways.

The City of Lexington cooperated in the department’s investigation, and we hope that same cooperation continues as we move to the next step of negotiating ways the city can bring its policing practices into compliance with the law. Good police work is done legally and fairly every day in many places in America and in Mississippi. The residents of small towns in Mississippi, like Lexington, deserve the same.

Todd Gee is the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi. He is the son of Vicksburg resident Anne Bullard Gee.