JACKSON, Mississippi (AP) — Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant said Thursday afternoon the state will rebid contracts with all firms mentioned in an indictment of former Corrections Commissioner Christopher Epps.
Spokesman Knox Graham said Thursday that Bryant instructed interim Corrections Commissioner Richard McCarty to stop negotiations with Utah-based Management and Training Corp. over renewing a $60-million-a-year contract to manage four private prisons with 4,000-plus inmates.
Two of MTC’s four prisons have been sued for inmate mistreatment.
Graham says Bryant was unaware of alleged misconduct when he reappointed Epps in 2012, though the FBI had been investigating Epps since 2010.
Bryant received a $1,000 campaign contribution from Brandon businessman Cecil McCrory, alleged to have provided more than $1 million in bribes to Epps. Graham says Bryant will donate the money to the Salvation Army.
An inmate serving 14 years for several convictions including simple assault on a police officer was stabbed to death allegedly by a fellow inmate Tuesday afternoon at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman.
Inmate Kelvin Bowen, 35, was pronounced dead at the prison’s hospital at 1:04 p.m.
Officials with the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) said Bowen was on his way to see a case manager when he was attacked with a sharp instrument in the hallway of Building 29, a maximum security unit, at the facility. […]
As Mississippi enters the second half of the current fiscal year, the state’s prison population continues to increase with no apparent signs of abating.
During 2011, the number of prisoners under the jurisdiction of state and federal correctional authorities declined by 0.9 percent, from 1,613,803 to 1,598,780.
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi’s Phil Bryant is joining several other governors in saying they want to block the federal government from putting any Syrian refugees in their states. However, Lavinia Limon, president and CEO […]