Governor Tate Reeves is holding a press conference right now. The stream is posted below.
Some highlights:
* Governor calls conditions in some prisons "terrible" and says they have been so for a "long time."
*Technology is being deployed to stop cellphone usage by inmates.
* Says the pay for corrections officers is too low.
* Guards will be screened for gang affiliations.
* Housing and prison jobs will be reviewed.
* MBI investigator took charge of criminal investigations at MDOC.
* "All options are on the table."
* Governor has been visiting prisons. He toured Walnut Grove facility. He said the tour was "thought-provoking." He said state is paying for Walnut Grove and it is vacant. It is superior to some MDOC facilities. The construction of the walls will prevent the passing of contraband. The walls are solid concrete, not hollow cinder blocks.
* He visited Units 29 and 32 at Parchman today.
* There are many guard positions that are funded but not filled.
Update (5:15 PM): Governor Reeves issued the following statement.
Today, Governor Tate Reeves visited the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman to personally inspect the conditions and speak with the Mississippians there. He was joined by Interim Corrections Commissioner Tommy Taylor and Vicksburg Mayor George Flaggs, who has been asked to lead a group of experienced, diverse Mississippi leaders conducting a nationwide search for a permanent head of the troubled Department.
Governor Reeves briefed the media on the conditions that he observed and steps that have been taken in the new leadership’s first week on the job to restore immediate order at Parchman, following a recent surge in violence that culminated in several deaths.
“There is a leadership crisis in our prison system. For too long, there has not been accountability. There has not been a steady hand on the wheel. I am grateful that Commissioner Taylor is beginning to make progress. These problems did not spring up overnight, and they will not be solved overnight, but the necessary work has begun. The lives and dignity of all within this system must be protected,” said Governor Reeves.
Since Commissioner Taylor’s first day on Monday, several important changes have already been implemented to protect the safety of officers and prisoners. They are aimed at addressing the administration’s immediate priority: restoring order at Parchman to prevent further needless death.
- Improving conditions: Maintenance teams from across the state of Mississippi have been deployed to immediately begin work to improve conditions at Parchman.
- Bringing leadership to the front lines: All Wardens and Deputy Wardens have been placed on twelve hour shifts to have leadership present and available to corrections officers at all times. A senior officer will be present on grounds at all times.
- Cracking down on contraband cell phones: During the recent series of killings, gangs were able to coordinate across the prison system through the use of contraband cell phones. This allowed one isolated incident to escalate into large-scale conflict that culminated in several deaths. The Managed Access System which blocks the signal of contraband cell phones is now being utilized at every Parchman housing unit.
- Fixing guard screening: In order to prevent corrections officers from assisting prisoners in violence, a tragic reality of the current circumstances, officers will be screened for signs of Security Threat Group (gang) affiliation.
- Relocating prisoners: Prisoners will be re-distributed throughout the prison—assigned to different jobs and housed in different facilities—to prevent the outbreak of additional violence.
- Increased transparency: MDOC staff have been instructed to provide as much information to the public as possible, as quickly as possible, about deadly incidents in the system.
As the work to prevent violence in the immediate future is underway, Governor Reeves and the new leadership at the Mississippi Department of Corrections are turning an eye towards the future. In addition to his Parchman visit, Governor Reeves toured the Walnut Grove Correctional Facility. Discussions regarding the status of prisoners at Parchman are ongoing, and no final determination for a long-term solution has been made yet. All options are on the table.
Parchman Visit |
Parchman Visit |
Parchman Visit |
Unit 29 Tour |
Walnut Grove Tour |
Walnut Grove |
Walnut Grove |
Walnut Grove |
51 comments:
Watched the whole thing. Reeves is going to be great in the job. He'll win re-election by a country mile.
What a dork
I’m almost hopeful by the actions of blocking cellphone signals and stopping the hiring of gang-affiliated guards. These steps, coupled with better pay for right employees, may actually prove fruitful. Everything else wrong will trickle into place if the gangs are exposed and stopped.
I’m curious about gang-screenings. If it’s so strict that NO family member is affiliated, a tremendous portion of population becomes ineligible. I know they keep databases and have folks undercover, but how will they truly monitor affiliations? The punishments need to be EXTREME for employees who lie about this.
The only thing I’d add is a work program to work off sentences. I KNOW for a fact there are large numbers of inmates that possess trade skills. You can visit any job site on FB and felons are looking for trade jobs. Let the prisoners assist with rebuild/renovations and maintenance. (Chill out... I don’t mean RUN them, but serve as manual labor for supervised contractors.) I’d have no problem with a day of reduced sentence for a day of true, contributed manual labor. Of course, there would have to be a zero tolerance policy for privilege of working... if you screw your chance, you get kicked out of program. Why not let the prisoners contribute to society and learn some work ethic while imprisoned? It will only sharpen their skills and give them something to do. Hell, start an apprentice program. They can use the skills once released. It’s a win-win!
This guy is a child wayyyy in over his head.
Tate Reeves had 8 years to do something about low corrections officer pay and all I'm aware of is a 5% raise to get the starting salary to $24,900. He and Phil Gunn did manage to cut MDOC from $136 million in FY 2013, the first fiscal year Reeves was lieutenant governor and Gunn became speaker, to $128 million for FY 2020. These numbers exclude medical, private, regional, and local confinement.
http://www.lbo.ms.gov/pdfs/fy13_bulletin.pdf
http://www.lbo.ms.gov/pdfs/fy20_bulletin.pdf
In case you are wondering, the number of inmates in state prisons at the start of FY 2013 was 9,582 and at the start of FY 2020 was 9,538.
So, the reduction wasn't because of fewer inmates.
https://www.mdoc.ms.gov/Admin-Finance/MonthlyFacts/07-01-2012_fact_sheet.pdf
https://www.mdoc.ms.gov/Admin-Finance/MonthlyFacts/2019-07%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf
So, Gov. Reeves needn't act surprise or like a hero that's gonna fix a problem that he helped create.
3:15 - Don't know about him being in way over his head, but he does not exactly inspire confidence in me. We'll see.
@3:15pm - Welcome to Mississippi “leadership” - Did you just move here?
And what would you do 3:03 ?
Tell us your plan to solve our "Prisoner Gang Violence" issues.
At least Governor Reeves is moving this "cluster phuck" to the top of his priorities.
Mississippi's prison gang problems didn't start last week, and they will not be solved next week.
So I guess Guvna Doughboy reads JJ? Those bulletpoints appear to be lifted straight from the comments here.
He scared of the feds intervention.
@2:42... Seriously? You watched the whole thing and you were impressed by what, exactly? I thought I was a mild Tate fan, but I had several points in the video where I actually cringed at his answers. I can't say I watched the whole thing because I skipped ahead several times hoping it would get better and it never did.
New Governor has his hands full.
None of his picks would except the MDOC Commissioner position, not a surprise.
Rumor is none of his picks excepted the DPS Commissioner position either, and don't forget there's no MBN Director. Rumor is lawsuits are in the works naming both Fisher and Dowdy for wrong doings within DPS/MBN.
All problems/issues can be linked back to one person, Marshall Fisher and the leadership he put in place.
Sounds like both agencies are in need of major overhauls in all leadership positions across the board, from the top to the bottom. Cut all the caner out while you have a chance.
Get to work Governor
So Epps got rid of Ms Bureau of Investigation in his facilities and used Correction Investigations who drove the Commission around the state. They even served as his personal security. The last 6 months he worked there was always 2 Correction Ivestigators with him.....he went NOWHERE alone. Maybe a real investigator can make a difference at parchmen
So, after being Lt. Gov. for 8 eight years and leading massive cuts to agency budgets, including MDOC, Tater all of a sudden figured out the infrastructure is crumbling, the guards are woefully underpaid, which leads to a disaster. Like a typical bureaucrat, nothing is done until the system collapses and then you pretend this happened all of a sudden.
Perhaps Shawn (AKA Jay-Z) Corey Carter's "lawsuit" will have an immediate effect to end the gang violence at our state prisons.
I wonder why this New York "rapper" didn't start with the Hinds County Detention Center ?
3:03 & 3:15 didn't watch the presser.
I've been reading elsewhere that it's a FCC violation to block cell phone signals, incoming or outgoing. How difficult will it be to get around that? Of course that would apply to staff as well as all the suits visiting from Jackson.
Related question: As fast as a cell phone runs down, how are they being recharged? Surely there are not electrical outlets available for convict (almost typed guest) use.
Unless you provide mental health care and drug rehabilitation you are just pissing money into the wind. Drugged and crazy people seldom care about the consequences. We are housing many people that should be treated medically.
Carlos Moore will save us all.
3:48 - Please try to limit yourself to, say, only six or eight rapid fire posts in succession. Thanks.
3:15pm here.....uh, I watched 15 minutes of it....and it told me everything I need to know. Others here are confirming it. He's strictly a bureaucrat with ZERO idea on how to fix it. Federal oversight is going to have him and Fitch dancing....kiss that rainy day fund goodbye. He created the problem and should be personally sued.....you'd better believe he's nervous....Jay-Z is a multi-BILLIONaire and can make that happen. Mississippi is doomed to keep electing snake oil losers that keep promising them to protect the racist flag and unborn chilluns. It's gonna get worse, much worse - before it gets better. I've worked years in state/federal prisons, so I likely know more than anyone on this board.
It really seems like Mississippi is FILLED with Lamar Adams types who think they will just NEVER get exposed.....Mississippi is long overdue for a full scale enema.
Whatever happened to having true Alpha Leadership. I bet his Grammy is so proud of him. That video is hard to watch.
“Governor calls conditions in some prisons "terrible" and says they have been so for a "long time."
So why didn’t he try to do anything about it before?
4:50 Nobody gives a shitt about jayz.
5:12pm Uh, didn't you leave off, "You in Mississippi now boy." Dirt dumb redneck idiot..... Tater IS for sure gonna care about Jay-Z and the DOJ, and a federal judge pretty soon....and for years to come. I wouldn't be surprised if Dipshit Hosemann attempts to come in and save the day as the experienced elder of the group. 10 people are dead. THAT is going to get some serious attention. Oh, and more federal/forensic audits might be in order to see where exactly IS all the money that should have been allocated to prevent such a thing happening in the first place?
@4:29- There shouldn’t be a need for drug rehab. They’ll detox in system, and if access is cut off, they won’t be able to get to any drugs. Problem solved.
Now, mental health is another thing. They need ONE prison to house cases requiring ANYTHING beyond counseling. For the emotionally afflicted and damaged, required counseling all around... with counselors to empower with social skills and coping mechanisms... not to encourage more victim mentality!
It’s not a complicated fix. It will just take the balls to ignore the rally cries from the detrimental parties and actually DO something about it!
man, everyone is gettin PAID. jailers, teachers, state employees...wow the new governor has a wad of magic money.
His tateness certainly doesn't inspire confidence when he is up there bumbling and shifting blame. Also, why in the hell does he need to fly around the state to view 2 prisons. Take a couple hours to drive if you value our tax money. Does he think we will be impressed that he has access to a plane?
@5:41
Have you bought a lotto ticket yet? Don't forget, they take state taxes out of jackpot winnings too!
Tate Reeves is Governor. Tate Reeves IS Governor.
JJ Trolls ARE LOSERS.
MDOC and DPS is so screwed up, the Governor cannot even find anyone to except the jobs. Common denominator - Marshall Fisher and his hand picked leadership at both agencies.
Step up Governor, fix the problems. Show me why my decision to vote for you was a good one.
Okay at first I thought Gov. Tater was walking around cleared corridors and empty cell blocks. But you can clearly see in the first picture that there are inmates on that mezzanine above the entourage.
I wonder if it was broadcast over prison PA system...
DO NOT DISRESPECT GOVERNOR REEVES. HE IS THE ONLY MAN IN THE STATE THAT CAN PARDON YOU
5:29- well it is certainly more complicated than you imagine. So it's best for you to leave the solutions to the professionals.
The drug addicted are in and out of the system. You may keep them away from drugs temporarily (or in the case of most prisons not) but then they get out. Start drugs again, rinse and repeat. The cycle goes on and on. Ask and LEO and they will tell you the same.
Mental health and drug rehabilitation IS the only way to stop the growing thug culture. Sane, healthy, non addicted inmates make up a small total of the population.
Not necessary to announce on PA. Inmates probably knew all there was to know about his visit before Saturday.
What kind of guards are the Leo's making? I never worked with a State Trooper who would give up his gun without a fuss.....
338, if you are so inside, please tell us more about 'his picks' that turned down those positions.
Frankly, you are just totally full of shit. Reeves has not offered any of those positions to anyone yet - it's true that several folks wanted them and he has not chosen to give them what they are wanting. So maybe that's the basis for your b/s claim - they are telling you they turned down the job.
If you want to try to call my statement out as wrong, put it up. You said that his 'picks' turned down the positions. So back it up, big boy - who were those 'picks'?
Ray Mabus for DOC Commissioner! A man of vision and leadership! From the Neshoba Fair, to the governor's mansion to Saudi Arabia to teaming up with priests in domestic circumstances, to aircraft carriers...Lord, this man's credentials are unequaled. Ray To Save The Day! To Save The Day You Must Choose Ray!
As far as WHO has been offered what, I just heard Phil Bryant was offered the DPS leadership role. We don't need no national searches.
Surely that’s not Chris the Colonel of MHP in the first photo. I thought that big clown was gone. Tate you must send this cry baby packing. Is the largest coward Law Enforcement has to offer. He is a liar. He is a capitalist. He is a clown. He is very dumb but however has many fooled. Please Tate don’t fall into his silver tongue speech. He ruined drivers services. He ruined MHP. He will continue to do so if left there. He must be removed. His idea to restore order inside the prison system would be rehire all the ones that were corrupt. That played a part in the mess. All the females that desired to be there. He can relate. He got a second chance to be a trooper. He feels all should too regardless of the circumstances as to why not. Surely! This can’t be Chris! You big Coward. Your shaken in your boots I just know it. Get your fake ass back to your office.
This guy scares the crap out of me every time he makes a public statement,kinda like Trump, you just can't wait for him to step away from the microphone.
Tater better believe that J can make him sweat, he has money and a bully puplit that far surpasses the states rainy day fund and Tater.
If Parchman or the DOC had needed a frontage road a few years ago maybe the Mississippi Doughboy would have been paying attention to these DOC issues as light governor? Because only a blind man didn't see this coming back like a boomerang? Too bad EPPS ran such a fiefdom that none of the HMFICs in Jackson never had a clue what he was up to?
Also the Mississippi Doughboy is not a reference to Tater's fine physical condition. It's a reference to someone who has spent the last eight years paying attention to the money and how to take tax money and expenditures from non supporters. Those funds can be utilized as benefits (tax cuts and no tax hikes) and spending (indirect subsidies, direct spending and gubmint funding of all sorts) to supporters and the bidnesses and special intersts employing all the lobbyists.
@ 5:50 - What's wrong with being a capitalist? Most employed folks are.
Add me to the list of folks wondering why now-Governor Reeves is suddenly interested in fixing things that he didn't fix as the Lt. Governor, when he had more actual power to do so. I am willing to give the guy a chance, within reason. But touring isn't fixing. If he needs such tours to determine there are lots of problems in Mississippi, this isn't going to go too well for him or more importantly, everyone forced to deal with the problems. In other words, nearly everyone in Mississippi in one way or another.
"Unlike jamming, managed access denies service to a select group of users, rather than to all users, and the technology is unable to stop the use of Wi-Fi to access the internet."
Do the prisons have Wi-Fi? If so, they'll be using Whatsapp in no time.
In my youth I spent about two years in Carthage at Walnut Grove. Now that was back in the days of the real horror. If they think that the inmates at MSP will not be able to pass contraband there at Walnut they are horribly mistaken. It is harder but by no means was it impossible. The gangs in MS stem from the connection of a majority populations ties to Chicago. The guards are very much criminally officiated, some know the prisoners from outside as I saw in both Rankin Co and Walnut Grove. I was routinely guarded by 18-20yr old female guards in Unit 3 of Walnut Grove. They are extremely willing to impress male inmates, if you catch my drift. Walnut Grove will always be hell on earth to me, but probably much better than MSP. Prison is not supposed to be nice, you don't end up there for doing right and being a great citizen. As the old saying goes, "If you do gangster things, you win gangster prizes".
Add me to the list of folks wondering why now-Governor Reeves is suddenly ...
Add another anonymous who dislikes Reeves to the JJ list. WOW, that is powerful. Reeves must be extremely worried.
It's impossible to isolate a group of users when the employees are providing the cell phones, recharging them and swapping them around among themselves and the inmates. They ought to blanket-zap everything within a mile of the cafeteria and tell the FCC to pound sand. They never had this problem at Rikers.
Tate took time from touring to post, "Add another anonymous who dislikes Reeves to the JJ list. WOW, that is powerful. Reeves must be extremely worried."
Aw, Tate, I don't dislike you. Heck, I even said outright that I'm willing to give you chance. But I'd also say that if there is a list of JJ posters who dislike you, there is a lot of other very similar lists. As to you being worried, whether the list is YUGE!, small or anywhere in-between there isn't a reason to be worried...at least about the lists...at least for the next three years or so.
To most posters that have not been in prison, the stories about prison seem abhorrent and an additional deterrent to ever have to be sent there. Shoes on other feet...it must not be so bad. There has to be a reason folks aren’t scared to go there. That’s what has to be changed. It’s not punishment for plenty of people there, just another world in which they live where the rules don’t apply.
Shit is getting real folks.....Mississippi is long overdue for a slapdown of the retread idiots its idiot citizenry keeps electing.
@ 8:28
Most of us that grew up with a set of consequences for our bad actions think that far ahead. “Don’t wanna wind up in jail”. Of course it never really even gets that far for a lot of us. We just seek to do the right thing.
The people who wind up in prison don’t GIVE A HOOT. They do not think about the consequences of their actions, much less fear the penal system. One thing I can say about the whole she bang is that it’s going to have to be completely re done one day. Putting potheads in jail/prison is the epitome of what’s wrong. We cannot continue, for that much longer, to lock these people up. Do the math.
And then there are the extremists that come out and say....”that person is pro-drug”.......which has kept a lot of people silent. That tactic is starting to fail if you haven’t noticed. This whole situation should be a NATIONAL case study in how we can improve the penal system as a nation because there are some serious problems that we cannot afford to ignore unless you want to start converting the local school house into a prison as well.
You Know how some people impress you. You look across the room and think, that guy could be governor. Or
Or president. I knew Tate at Miilsaps. No such thoughts. Mediocre. Oatmeal. But then that’s about the beat this poor beat down state can expect.
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