Jackson Jambalaya

so the data backs up the sheriff-somehow im not surprised

They rode Faye Peterson out on a rail for the same level of inefficiency.

Walk through the courthouse several times a week. See how many trials are in progress.

and don't forget that Judge Green cut the number of grand jury meetings in half when she became Senior Judge although that changed when Pod C shut down.

What's the relevance of the Faye Peterson comment? I don't see District Attorney mentioned in Kingfish's trial protocol.

If bottlenecks and incompetence exist, point them out, by position and name. No shotgunning.

Kingfish, please get comparable jail stats for 2010 or 2011.

Sheriff McMillin was in charge then and there were no riots and so forth. The same poorly built jail was somehow a safe facility.

7:02, I don't have the numbers, but I do have the anecdotal experience of seeing clients in B Pod (under the former administration). Safe is not a word I use to describe the experience.

(Not complaining-it goes with the territory to a degree, but don't paint some inaccurate picture of what it was like.)

What are the comparables of present sheriff to former sheriff versus ratio of personnel/guards to prisoners? Didn't Sheriff Lewis dismiss several of Mcmillan's staff??

At some point the Feds will step in. The state Supreme Court could spur reform by enforcing the speedy trial guarantee, but that doesn't apply in the minds of a majority of the court.

6:51 AM would also have you believe that Robert Smith's job performance is beyond reproach.

i am amazed that damn near anything re jail/ crime etc results in attacks on Sheriff Lewis--he is a RIGHTOUS DUDE that knows his bidness ---with just a little digging u discover that the Sheriff has many detractors in the BLACK community cause he has the AUDACITY to hire sum WHITE folks instead all black folks--_hard to believe/prove but TRUE!!!

just to clarify slightly...I believe this list is all of the jails, not just the Raymond Detention Center. For example, in the right-hand column under 'cell #', anything listed 'cf###' is the County Farm. I believe that the Raymond detention center cells are the ones with "A1 ####', 'B2 ####' and so on, with the "A" and "B" denoting pods. However, your premise is correct. This problem has been brewing for a long time because the courts only work a few hours a week. And the crap about the jail being poorly designed and built is way overblown. Mac ran this jail for 20-odd years and didn't have 1/10 the problems Tyrone has had. It's not the building, it's the people - or lack thereof.

Tyrone has had two riots in his short tenure. What difference does it make how long the inmates have been there? Doesn't matter whether they've been there one day or ten years, the Sheriff is supposed to control the prison population. Tyrone is pointing the finger at the courts and D.A. for a problem that is 100% his responsibility.

Would we be having this conversation if a trustworthy contractor had received the contract in the beginning? Was the contract awarded by side-stepping procedure?
If I recall correctly, problems with locks, wiring and a myriad of other security measures surfaced early on and the problems kept mounting- soon after the contractor declared bankruptcy and we were stuck with this black hole.
Why wasn't the contracted vetted to a greater degree? If the finished jail was an example of their work then something was very wrong.
This boondoggle sits squarely in the lap of those who allowed the contract in the beginning.

Here are the facts: Tyrone fired just about everyone who knew how to run the jail when he was elected. Now he has a staff of about 90% women serving over male inmates. Tyrone is too busy appearing for his next holiday billboard to concern himself with the jail. I wonder what the T-Dog Memorial Day Billboard will be like? Tyrone storming the beach at Normandy maybe?

" Doesn't matter whether they've been there one day or ten years, the Sheriff is supposed to control the prison population."

What a stupid comment. You get a jail overcrowded, NOBODY is going to be able to "control the prison population" 100%. You try it.

Who was the contractor for the jail?

"The state Supreme Court could spur reform by enforcing the speedy trial guarantee"

That's an excellent observation and suggestion.

@10:36, what a stupid comment. Who said the Raymond jail is overcrowded? It's at capacity (approx. 800), just like it always has been and always will be. Or maybe you think it's supposed to look like Andy Griffith's jail, where the town drunk can always just make himself at home on an empty cot.

That's why Tyrone's attempt to blame the judicial system for his riots is pure hogwash. If he can't control 800 prisoners in a facility built to hold 800 prisoners, then we need a new sheriff.

Don't know about then sheriff vs now sheriff but the jail has beem a fiasco since day 1. Poor design worse construction. It was a politically awarded contract and the county has been piece milling it together ever since

The company was Dunn Construction. Also, the contract was let when the great racist Benny T. was a supervisor and was full of his minority contractors. Imagine that.

Ah yes my informed voters of Hinds County. Allow me to remind you of the immortal words spoken by our recently departed Mayor Chokeweed, Sr. from the front steps of the Hinds County Court House, to wit: "It is time for a white sheriff in Hinds County". Oh dear, have the chickens come home to roost?

the raymond detention center capacity is 594. current population is 360. Jackson detention center capacity is about 200 - population is currently 135. county farm currently holds 176. don't know how many inmates are farmed out to Madison, rankin, ....
10:33 is exactly correct. you can spin it however you want. bottom line, T-bone don't know what the hell he is doing.

If 11:54's numbers are correct, and the county jails are below capacity, then there is zero excuse for Tyrone trying to shift the blame to the courts or D.A. Doesn't make a dime's worth of difference who the inmates are or how long they've been there - it's his job to keep 'em under control and he ain't doing it.

Which gets to the root of the problem - a real leader accepts responsibility and doesn't point fingers. He's the one who decided to fire all the experienced jailers and replace them with overweight women. The fact that they couldn't subdue one jerk with a firehose, which led to the first riot, should tell you all you need to know about the staffing there. That's not a construction or design flaw - that's having the wrong people doing the wrong jobs.

11:54 thank you for some facts. Finally facts instead of the Sheriff blaming Stokes, the DA, the Judges and a few of his cousins. Y'all this is the same dude that let his son rent out the JPD training facility for parties back in 2007. Same guy that perjured himself on the witness stand.

Well, allow me to retort.

Quoting the post by Kingfish:

"The jail had 832 inmates on March 31, 2014."

That is "overcrowded."

@2:05, did you read the comment @11:54? Kingfish is apparently aggregating all of the prisoners at all of the facilities to reach his "832" number - which obviously tells us nothing about overcrowding at any given facility. If @11:54 is correct, then there is zero overcrowding anywhere in the system and therefore zero reason for Tyrone to blame anyone else for the problems at the Raymond facility.

You need to let that one go, because it's starting to stink the joint up.

The problem was in the specifications and design. The contractor has to adhere to the contract. The contractor cannot alter the specifications and design on his own initiative and expect to be paid. The contractor can notify if problems are seen, but the owner ( in this case, the county) has to agreed to any cost overruns in correcting the problem.

KF, there should be court documents on the jail.

Bennie Thompson was on the BOS through 1993. Certainly this involves him. since the jail opened twenty years ago.
Maybe he can dim, sorry, I meant shine some light on the matter.

Pushed by K. Stokes, the BOS voted in June 2012 to close the Raymond facility and build a new jail. The initial vote was 2-2 until later in the day when Stokes brought the matter up again and Doug Anderson, who had not been present earlier, voted for it. Thus it passed 3-2.
Robert Graham said the cost would be about 30 million. Stokes suggested it could be paid for by raising taxes.
Info from WAPT online.
Isn't Jackie Anderson Woods Doug Anderson's daughter? Woods is Tony Yarber's new Chief of Staff.
I hope she lives up to Yarber's expectations. I don't know anything about her except someone brought up that she is D. Anderson's daughter.

graham (the legend) is an idiot (a foregone conclusion). A new jail would be at least twice that amount. The one built in '94 was right at 20 million (oh btw, the contracted price was about 12 million - thanks to Bennie's minions, cost overruns pushed it to almost 20 mil).

What makes this jail poorly designed?

Aren't there portions of the Raymond jail that cannot be used? If so, it could be at or over capacity even at a lower prisoner number.

Bennie Thompson should be aware of what took place when the contract was awarded.
What is with some of our leaders being heralded by the Nation of Islam?
Bennie Thompson called USSCJ Clarence Thomas an Uncle Tom while speaking on the New Nation of Islam radio program.
Judge Tomie Green received the Freedom Fighter award in 2000 from the Nation of Islam.
Louis Farrakhan echoed Kenneth Stokes' words about Chokwe Lumumba's "murder."
Are these folks beholden to Louis Farrakhan? If so, what do they hope to gain?
Is the New Nation of Islam connected to the Republic of New Afrika?

About the design of the jail - the County forced the Architect to hire a minority engineering firm who did an amazingly incompetent design job. Electronic drawings for complex projects have several 'layers' that print together. For instance on a plumbing drawing all the walls might be one layer, the floor drains on a layer, the toilets on a layer, etc. A printed sheet will have several layers of items on it. Some of these engineer's drawings had several layers turned off when plans were printed. One item I seem to recall was floor drains. I believe there should have been a floor drain in every cell, plus other locations and no floor drains were shown. The number of errors was massive. This was widely known BEFORE BIDDING. I knew it and I wasn't even bidding the job. The proper thing for contractors to do is point out these errors before bidding. Dunn's philosophy was not to say anything about errors before bidding so as to make money on change orders. (I know some of ya'll think all contractors do this, but they don't). So the root of the problem lies at the Board of Supervisors at that time for imposing (illegal) racial quotas on the Architect.

I visited the jail six hours after the riot in pod C. Standing water that was an inch or more deep throughout the pod. Why? No drains. Motors for the locks were too small too open them when it opened for business. One person told me some of the toilets did not have pipes underneath them when it was built.

One time I spoke to Mr. Mounger. The jail came up. He said back in the 90's he had a very good engineer look at the plans. He said the jail was so screwed up in terms of design and construction, it could not be fixed and the county should just tear it down and start over.

I want to explain a comment I made earlier. I said - 'So the root of the problem lies at the Board of Supervisors at that time for imposing (illegal) racial quotas on the Architect.' My explanation is, the Supervisors insisted on a local minority Architect or Engineering firm. At that time there was no local minority Architect or Engineering firm that was competent to do that project. The Supervisors should have know this or found out. So by forcing this illegal racial quota, they forced the Architect to subcontract to an incompetent firm and in the process wasted many millions of tax payer dollars.

How does the design of this building compare to Sheriff Joe Arpayo's campus designed by Omar the tent-maker? How can you goobs blame riots and incompetence on plumbing problems and motors that are too weak to open doors?

The problem at the jail is poor management! It has nothing to do with the design of the facility. There is a concept called inmate management that is nonexistent
down there. To maintain it requires proper staffing and leadership!

The architect should have recognized the engineering drawings were bad and pointed that out. He may have. But , ultimately, the problem is that too often, politicians and their staff don't know when they lack the knowledge or experience to let the bid.
There's a difference in whether or not it can be made to function as intended or simply made to function. Function may required a different method of running the jail as is rather than making it function as intended.
I doubt even Mounger and others are thinking outside the box that way on this.

When the next sheriff is elected the jail will see less disturbances. The voters know who is to blame for the recent jail problems. The voters will replace Tyrone Lewis.

The voters will replace Tyrone Lewis.

Not if his opponent is white.

Idiot at 9:14; Are you seriously still stuck on the crazy notion that 'design problems' cause prison unrest and riots? Even if the shitter doesn't always work perfectly or the doors don't close well....it's an improvement over the hood. You could put all these turds at The Hilton and they'd riot with poor management and oversight.

Mack Million, aka General Sherman, burned the bridge.

3:03 ftw.

Here's a very short, bullet point fictional story from a Detentional Facility in Shind, County, MS under a gone-by admin for you folks longing for good old days.
(I haven't been in Shind in recent times, so I'll have to go on memory and rum.)

I get escorted in after giving up wallet and bar card-walk along the wall. No problem there. Left at the entrance to the pod at the outer door. Clearance to enter? Good. That's actually the point I get left to enter. First door secures behind me.

Walk past what should be a second secure door.

Chaos. CO in the central room screaming commands to prisoners in two cells on his right. They are doing they're on thing. Sort of. Following orders just enough. No some screaming at prisoners behind him, who are totally free to rush him, but they seem to maybe understand that he is trying to get them lined up to get meds. Maybe that's what they're up. Maybe not.

To the left? Prisoners ready to come in from the yard / getting time out.

CO says I'm clear to meet in the library, so I walk to it. Meet client for as long as I can stand the 55 degree temps and leave.

But this safe, orderly place is all fiction. Never existed. Sleep tight Mississippians.