County Work Program Violates State Policy
In what Sheriff Malcolm McMillin called an effort to rehabilitate prisoners, Hinds County MS sent state inmates, including a violent offender, off site to work. The apparent good deed, though, was in violation of state law, and was discovered during a recent inspection. Story from the Clarion Ledger.
The Sheriff’s Department this year had three female inmates out working: two at local nonprofits and the other at the county jail’s switchboard. Aside from one inmate being a violent offender, the others were ineligible to perform community service because they had not been approved to do so by the state. McMillin’s office for years has sent inmates into the community to work in exchange for “good time” credit on their sentences. McMillin has said he was unaware his department was violating the law. “There’s no answer for it,” McMillin said. “I’m not going to have any problems with it because it’s not happening anymore.”
State inmates should not be working outside the jail unless they are part of a county/state work program, Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps said. Epps’ office earlier this month told the Sheriff’s Department to stop sending inmates out – or risk losing the inmates and the $20 per day the state pays the county to house them. MDOC has 23 inmates at the 173-bed detention center in downtown Jackson. Those inmates are classified to work on the jail premises only, Epps said. The inmates sent out by the Sheriff’s Department worked in various jobs.
- [One felon] did clerical work at the Museum of Art for several weeks earlier this year. [She] is serving six years concurrent on four charges of kidnapping, with four years of probation to follow. She was convicted in Hinds County in 2006. Museum of Art Director Betsy Bradley said the museum had no trouble with [the inmate]. “She did a good job while she was here.”
- [An inmate] was working as a switchboard operator for the Sheriff’s Department. She was convicted in Hinds County in January and is serving five years on an embezzlement charge.
- [Another inmate] is serving three years for house burglary. She was convicted in March in Hinds County. She was working at Stewpot Community Services but now answers the phones at the jail downtown.
Stewpot Director Frank Spencer could not be reached for comment. He has said it could cost Stewpot $25,000 a year to hire a replacement for [the inmate]. The Sheriff’s Department has had a standing, but not written, policy for years to use state inmates at agencies such as Stewpot, The American Red Cross and the Museum of Art, Chief Deputy Steve Pickett said. “The sheriff believes in rehabilitation,” Pickett said. But the state first must perform mental, physical and background checks on all inmates it classifies as those who can work, Epps said. Once they pass the checks, inmates can only work on jail grounds, Epps said. A court order filed at the beginning of June puts an end to sending inmates off site.
Since 1983, the state has renewed a standing agreement with Hinds County to house prisoners downtown without inspection of the facility or its records, prisoners’ rights attorney Ron Welch said. The state last year changed that policy, and Welch now must inspect each facility every year before the agreement is renewed. On a recent inspection of the downtown jail, Welch found the unclassified inmates out in the community working.
Hinds County has a joint state/county work center at the penal farm in Raymond, where about 200 male state inmates work regularly in the community doing jobs such as cleaning up garbage beside roads and mowing county rights of way. Those inmates can work at nonprofits, if the sheriff opts to do that, Epps said. He has not done so.
County-State Issues, Inmate Labor, MS Hinds County, Mississippi
Recent Comments