State Removes Working Inmates From Jail
Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps during a Dec. 2007 Board of Supervisors meeting.
By David Howell
Editor
WATER VALLEY – Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps will no longer allow state inmates classified to work to be housed in the Yalobusha County Jail.
Although the move only affects one prisoner currently being housed at the jail, it comes after years of wrangling between county officials and prisoner’s rights attorney Ron Welch.
“Mr. Welch sent a letter last Monday, the Commissioner of Corrections (Chris Epps) would not sign off on an extension for the jail,” Sheriff Lance Humphreys told supervisors during the “first Monday” meeting on April 4.
“That means we will not need Mr. Welch any more,” District Three Supervisor M.H. “Butch” Surrette asked after Humphreys updated supervisors on the jail.
“That is correct,” Humphreys answered.
Welch represents Mississippi prisoners in a variety of class action federal court cases concerning conditions of confinement. His jurisdiction only pertains to non-violent state inmates who are classified to work.
He inspected the 40-plus year-old Yalobusha Jail in September, 2008, and compared the antiquated facility to a dungeon.
A federal court order was handed down immediately after the visit. The order mandated extensive requirements including im-posing a strict deadline, September 1, 2009, in which the county must show “good cause” that a new jail was in the works or the county will lose the right to house state prisoners.
In September, 2009 the county was granted a 12 month extension after supervisors and Humphreys had worked on a number of options including building a regional jail to replace the 1964-model jail currently in use. An extension was granted again in September, 2010, but this time for only six months.
“Basically after he (Epps) saw the last extension and we asked for another one this time, he did not feel like the county was going to build a jail or do anything, he was not going to sign off on it,” Humphreys told supervisors at the last meeting.
Although Welch’s jurisdiction and the court order pertains solely to state inmates classified to work, the issue also touched off a broader discussion about the 1964-model facility that houses a total of 24 prisoners in the months and years following the 2008 inspection.
Epps first visited Yalobusha County in 2007 to discuss the possibility of building a new regional jail that would jointly house county and state inmates. The county could receive $20 per day per inmate from the state to house the inmates, income that would be budgeted for the debt service reduction for the new facility. Additionally the inmates could provide labor on city and county property.
Landing a regional jail in Yalobusha became a hot political topic, during both the 2008 and 2009 state legislative session. Each year a number of bills in the Senate and House authorizing regional jails did not survive the lengthy legislative process.
With the nation mired in a recession and state funding tight, supervisors abandoned the idea to build a regional jail in 2009. Instead, attention focused on building a $2.5 million county jail to house 56 county and pre-trial inmates and 20 to 25 state inmates. In September, 2009, supervisors voted 4 -1 to to move forward with the construction of a new county jail.
Working with G.G. Ferguson, company president of Ferguson and Associates Architects, Humphreys introduced another scaled back plan in May 2010. This proposal would eliminate the 20 to 25 beds included for state inmates and shave off another half million dollar from the $2.5 million price tag.
“We haven’t backed up on our commitment to build this jail. But I think at this particular time, we need to look a little bit closer at what is coming down from the state,” Vaughn said at that 2010 meeting, referring to cuts that could affect the county.
