Award-winning Clarion-Ledger journalist Jerry Mitchell moderated a panel Wednesday, discussing the corruption Mississippi’s prisons face in relation to the number of inmates incarcerated.
The panel comes on the heels of the resignation of Chris Epps, a longtime corrections commissioner who plead guilty to taking nearly $2 million in bribes in exchange for prison contracts. Corruption is just one of the many problems Mississippi prisons face, panelists said.
Low education and pay of corrections officers are a significant problem in correctional facilities, Marshall Fisher, corrections commissioner said. Officers need a high school education or GED and must be 21 years old to apply. The position’s starting salary is $22,000. Mississippi currently has just under 19,000 people incarcerated.
Low pay also leads to corruption, Fisher and UM Chair of Legal Studies, Eric Lambert said. Since February 2015, Fisher has been ordering raids of inmates’ cells, from which over 300 illicit items have been confiscated. Lambert said according to correctional facility research, it is estimated that 35-65 percent of these “contraband items” are introduced by prison staff. Because of their low salaries, officers are more likely to accept bribes from inmates in exchange for contraband goods like drugs, cellphones and other illicit materials, panelists said.
Many of the panelists agreed that other possible solutions to combat the violence and inefficiency of prisons include reentry programs, prevention methods and a regional jail model.
Reentry programs would help inmates assimilate into life after prison and prevention methods would include literacy programs to help children avoid a life leading to prison. This model would enable efficiency by breaking up large prisons into smaller, regional ones.
“If it’s a revolving door, then obviously we’re not correcting anybody,” Mississippi Senator Lydia Chassaniol said.
During the panel, an audience member asked what correctional officers were doing to improve relations with and reduce the number of minorities in prison.
Though Fisher did not have a blanket solution, he said it was something to consider. He also mentioned community policing to build stronger relations with minority communities and developing a national conscience to improve minority relations as potential solutions.
“I found it interesting that they [the panel] didn’t really have an answer to the minority question,” senior journalism student Edwin Edenfield said. “I feel like that’s a pretty big deal that people should be focusing on.”
Junior journalism major, Adrienne Lay said she was glad she attended the panel because of the different perspectives that were included and the extent of the issues were surprising. “Honestly, I didn’t know it was an issue until I heard about there being a Mississippi prison problems panel.”
