District 4 Supervisor Tony Greer said putting the $45-per-day cost on the municipalities who send people to the jail would help the county make court-ordered improvements to the facility, as well as assist with the construction of a new jail in the future.
People arrested in the city of Jackson, the largest municipality in Hinds County, also make up the majority of people incarcerated at the county-run Raymond Detention Center. That has long been a source of handwringing by county officials, who claim Jackson's inmates are breaking the bank.
This morning, the Hinds County Board of Supervisors took the first concrete steps toward alleviating that imbalance. District 4 Supervisor Tony Greer, who represents a large portion of Raymond, asked the county's legal team to start the process of exiting the agreement with the City of Jackson and start drafting a new contract under which Hinds County municipalities would pay the full cost of housing their prisoners plus medical expenses.
"Agreements in the early '90s were well intentioned," county attorney Pieter Teeuwissen told the board. "But it's evident that the intentions of the early '90s need some adjustment."
The county has an annual operating budget of around $52 million and pays about $14 million to house people awaiting trial at the Raymond jail. The county also maintains the Henley-Young Juvenile Justice Center.
Greer said putting the $45-per-day cost on the municipalities who send people to the jail would help the county make court-ordered improvements to the facility, as well as assist with the construction of a new jail in the future.
As of June 6, prisoners from Jackson comprised 58 percent of the 809 inmates housed at the detention center, information from the county website shows. The jail, which supervisors are in charge of maintaining and the Hinds County Sheriff's Office runs daily, is the subject of a federal investigation for prisoner safety. A county judge has also ordered repairs and other fixes to the two-decade-old facility.
District 1 Supervisor Robert Graham agreed that renegotiation is needed, and added: "My personal belief is that we need to go even further and charge people for going to jail."
Officials from the City of Jackson were not immediately available this morning for comment.
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