Last week Mayor Frank Melton announced a number of methods to combat crime in the city. "I'm making a change in leadership at the municipal court, and Gayle Lowery, a current city judge, will take over the municipal court effective immediately," Melton announced at a July 25 press conference in what his office is now calling the "oval office" (the square "ceremonial" mayor's office in City Hall).
Lowery will serve as the court's deputy director of administration, a position newly opened to the system, which employs about 50. Melton also said he was respectfully requesting that city judges set bonds at a minimum of $500,000 "for anyone who uses a weapon to assault another human being." Currently, a judge presented with facts on an offender already has the power to issue a $500,000 bond at his discretion.
"We're through setting (bonds) by schedules. That's over," the mayor said. "They have to go before a judge. A judge is the only person who should set a bond, and now they're being set by everybody, by policemen, by the schedule that they have. … By detaining that person for 48 hours with a $500,000 bond, it will allow a judge and a court of law to assess the behavior of this individual and make a decision as to whether he or she wants to let them out on bond."
Melton also proclaimed that the municipal courts were "corrupt."
"I've had certain people who I've dealt with confide in me that there is a scam going on at the municipal court system where they can go down and get their charges erased and get their records dropped. People had interdictions with the Police Department, and they were either arrested or given a citation and were allowed to go to court and not pay the citation but to pay an individual to take them out of the computer, which (cleans their record) when indeed they've probably been arrested 10 or 15 times," said Melton, who added that his suspicions of corruption arose during his time at the helm of Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics.
Melton said he chose Lowery, who will make about $60,000 and keep her private practice as an attorney, because he needed someone he trusted to "clean the place up."
The mayor said he will also request an audit on the court system.
The audit may be easily forthcoming. The $500,000 bond hike, however, might be more difficult to deliver, according to prisoners' rights attorney Ron Welch.
"There's a thing called unreasonable bond," Welch said. "The proper way you get somebody in jail is you prosecute them quick. Give them their due process, convict them and then lock then up."
Welch added that Melton's wishes may end up pitted against those of the Legislature.
"I guess some problems with a uniform bond thing is that it is designed essentially to put the people you choose—as opposed to the people the Legislature chooses—in jail. Now if what they're doing locally is consistent with what the Legislature chooses, then fine. But when you get into the million-dollar bond category, the question is whether that's unreasonable bond and violates the Constitution."
Melton's announcement raised eyebrows at the Mississippi ACLU as well.
"Our concern with the mayor's recommendation is that an increase in the bond amount for certain crimes may violate the 5th Amendment and 8th Amendment rights of an individual," said ACLU Executive Director Nsombi Lambright. "The 5th Amendment guarantees a fair due process to individuals charged with crimes, while the 8th Amendment protects individuals from excessive bail fees."
Lambright argued also that tough-on-crime tactics, with stringent sentencing guidelines and high bonds, don't usually benefit communities.
"The main benefactors are the private corporations that make money off the number of beds that are filled in jails and prisons. Communities benefit from comprehensive crime prevention plans that deter crimes before they happen. Raising bonds presents an unfair burden for indigent people who can't afford a good attorney," Lambright said.
An inevitable consequence of raising bail bonds, according to veterans of the system, is a quick need for additional jail space.
"My background opinion is that anytime you start looking at increasing bonds for anybody, you're going to have to have more jail space," Welch said. "There's no getting around it."
Sheriff Malcolm McMillin has suggested that the city would save money by leaving the jail running to the county, which already has experience with the business. Melton says he has big plans for a new city jail in Jackson, however, touting the almost 50-year-old Human and Cultural Services building on North State Street as a possible holding facility to replace the structurally beleaguered jail on Silas Brown Street. Melton said he intends to convert it into a 150- to 200-bed facility.
Melton said last week he would be moving in a hurry "because the one we've got now is unsafe."
"If I have to borrow cots from the U.S. National Guard, I'll get cots until we can get something more permanent in there," Melton said.
Welch said the city would have to conform to federal standards, and warned that the city has already been found in violation of such standards and that using the old Juvenile Detention Center on Silas Brown Street, as the city is currently doing, is illegal and already violates a court order due to its poor and overcrowded conditions. He said he also questioned the costs of renovating an old building compared to building a new one.
"Traditionally it costs so much more money than building a new one that it's not even funny," Welch said. "And even then you don't get what you need, which is a staff-efficient facility. It's a much more important cost to run a correctional facility and fully staff it than use these old ones and make do. You have increased liability, and you need increased staff to run it, which you're really not going to get, and then with fewer staff, well, bad things always happen."
Melton told reporters that he intended to get inmate labor from the Hinds County Sheriff's Department or to hire Jackson minors to clean out the building through an after-school work program. There may be a problem there as well—acting Public Works Director Thelman Boyd said the building runs a risk of being laced with asbestos, due to its age.
Council President Marshand Crisler said Melton would need the council's approval for the funding of a new jail in any case and said he wondered where the city would get the money from.
"Whenever you're talking about anything new, we have to be creative in terms of funding," Crisler said. "We're all looking pretty slim, and things are looking bleak in terms of funding, so we have to take a strong look at where this (jail) sits as a priority."
Crisler said if the city were to run its own jail, citizens might be expected to commit themselves to new city taxes.
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