The Mississippi Department of Corrections made it official Thursday morning, confirming that the Technical Violation Center, referred to in Magee as the satellite prison, will close.
Christy Gutheroz, spokesperson for the Department of Corrections, along with Everett Matheny and Facility Control Officer Otis Bailey made the official announcement in Simpson County at the last Thursday’s Board of Supervisors meeting .
The main reason cited for the closure was economic. The facility in Magee and another in Washington County will be closed. Gutheroz said that the inmates would be transferred to a facility which had been a private prison in Greenwood before being acquired by the state. It will be used to house inmates who are considered non-violent offenders.
The Magee facility reportedly housed 102 inmates. According to Gutheroz, 10 employees are associated with the facility. Magee Alderman Patrick Brown, who retired as a facility officer, said last week the number of employees was closer to 20.
Gutheroz said that officers would be offered similar jobs at other correctional facilities in the state. She told the board they should receive a 30-day written notice of closure in May.
Magee Mayor Dale Berry discussed options to the use of inmate labor because much of the city workforce, particularly in the garbage department, is made up of inmates from the correctional facility. Berry reported that the city uses eight inmates during the winter months and 15 during the summer months. He said that nine different counties and cities get inmates to offset the cost of services offered in their communities and that he was getting calls from those entities to determine what course of action city leadership needs to take with regard to loss of inmate labor.
At Berry’s request Brian Kennedy agreed to help set up a meeting with outside county officials, and Berry was to contact municipal officials to chart a course of action.
As of the writing of this story, House Bill 387 now being considered by the state legislature would make inmate labor available to governmental entities if they agree to provide transportation and other costs associated with the program. However, transportation to Magee from the centers in Pearl or Forrest County would take so much time from the work day that it may not be feasible.
Simpson County has a bit of a different arrangement in the form of an existing Joint State Agreement that allows the county to house up to 30 state inmates at one time. The county is currently housing 25. The problem is that most of the inmates are already providing services to the county and are not available to the City of Magee. Ten inmates are used on county garbage collection, four in the facility kitchen providing inmate meals and four in the road department. They are also being utilized in buildings and grounds maintenance as well as the sheriff’s shop.
Alderman Brown estimated that the expense involved to provide the City of Magee with 10 inmates would be about $300,000. This includes their custody and supervision.
Gutheroz said another option would be to use female offenders from the Florence facility because it is closer to Magee than some of the other options.
The county originally had been paid for housing state inmates but that is no longer the case as that program was planned as a funding source when the jail complex was built in Mendenhall.
Gutheroz told the board that the state currently houses approximately 19,000 inmates.
