The Mississippi Department of Corrections has changed policies for state prisoners which could affect local jails in counties around the state.
Prior to October of 2015, MDOC paid some county jails — including facilities in Clay and Monroe counties — to house non-violent offenders. As part of a joint state-county work program, the offenders would serve their prison sentences in county jails while doing unpaid labor for the local governments, according to Grace Simmons Fisher, communications director with MDOC.
In October, due to budget restraints, MDOC Commissioner Marshall Fisher announced that the department would no longer pay counties to house state inmates.
Local officials told The Dispatch the loss of revenue has not forced any county jail jobs to be cut in the Golden Triangle — yet.
Jails in Noxubee and Lowndes counties do not currently house state inmates.
Jails in Clay and Monroe counties both house state inmates convicted of non-violent crimes. Until last October, the counties were paid to house the inmates. Now the state pays for prisoners’ health care, but not housing, according to Clay County Sheriff Eddie Scott and Monroe County Sheriff Cecil Cantrell.
“Most of these guys are in jail on some type of drug charge or forgery or something like that. Non-violent crimes,” Scott said. “We don’t put anybody out there that’s got a violent charge without an armed guard. … We have several programs that we offer these guys trying to get them ready for re-entry.”
Even with the change in MDOC policy, housing state inmates is still a better deal for the county than sending them back to the state, Cantrell said. It costs about $20 per inmate per day to keep them in the Monroe County Work Center, which is an extension of the Monroe County Detention Center. The labor those inmates provide is labor the county would have to pay for itself if the prisoners were in state prisons, according to Cantrell.
“(The) county can’t go and hire a person to work for $20 a day,” Cantrell said.
He added that the lack of funding hasn’t cost the county any jobs for the moment. The same is the case in Clay County, according to Scott, though he added that in six months that might not be the case. The numbers of his state prisoners is already lower than it was before MDOC’s policy changes. Clay County is approved to house 62 state inmates. Now, it houses between 22-40.
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