MISS. PRISONER NUMBERS GROWINGBY LAURA HIPP

Mississippi has one of the highest inmate incarceration rates in the
country, and the state's prison population keeps growing, amid
concern about pending budget woes and a shortage of inmate beds.

Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps said his staff expected the
inmate population to grow by 594 between July 1 and June 30, 2007.

Instead, the inmate tally hit 610 additional prisoners Dec. 10.

"I can't tell you what the next six months is going to bring," Epps said.

House Corrections Chairman Bennett Malone, D-Carthage, said the
number of empty beds in state prisons went from about 1,200 earlier
this year to fewer than 200, Malone said.

"We've had a population explosion, and it's mostly drug-related," Malone said.

He attributes much of the increase to law enforcement and courts on
the Mississippi Gulf Coast returning to normal after Hurricane Katrina.

Epps said more than 4,000 people are in MDOC custody for possession of drugs.

"We are like Motel 6; we keep the lights on here 24 hours a day,"
Epps said. He sees drug courts, which seek treatment over
incarceration, as part of the answer.

"We need drug courts in every court district in the state," he said.

Epps said he also would like to see more nonviolent prisoners placed
on house arrest, which would remove them from the physical custody of MDOC.

The answer surely will require more money appropriated in an
election year in which education is grabbing the focus.

"You start looking at the standoff we have on education," Malone
said. "We have runaway growth in the prison population. All of it
costs more money."

Malone plans to re-introduce an bill allowing parole for individuals
caught selling a small amount of drugs the first time.

His target is young offenders who make a mistake.

"Now, these old pros in the drug dealing, I'm not for trying to do
anything to them," Malone said.

Making parole easier for offenders will be a challenge in an
election year when lawmakers do not want to appear "soft" on crime, he admits.

Last year, Mississippi's overall prison population declined
slightly, but the state had the highest increase in the country in
the number of inmates on probation and one of the highest increases
in the number on parole.

The latest U.S. Department of Justice statistics show Mississippi's
overall prison population decreased 2.2 percent in 2005.

At the end of 2004, Mississippi had 20,993 in its custody. At the
end of 2005, the number was down to 20,515, a decrease of 478
inmates. But now, the population in custody is about 21,700, and
MDOC has a 22,196-inmate capacity from state-run and
privately operated prisons and those held in county jails on contract.

In 2005, Mississippi ranked third in the country in the number of
incarcerated inmates per 100,000 residents. Only Louisiana and Texas
ranked higher.

Mississippi's incarceration rate of 660 per 100,000 population was
above the national average of 491 inmates per 100,000 population.

But Mississippi had a 17 percent increase in its probation
population in 2005, the highest in the country. The state also had a
double digit increase in its parole population.

MDOC also has an earned release program that allows an inmate to
serve part of a sentence incarcerated and the remainder in the
community under the supervision of a correctional field officer.

Mississippi's prison population has been mostly on an upward spiral
since the enactment of a 1995 sentencing law that phases out paroles
and requires felons to serve 85 percent of the time imposed by courts.

Epps said Mississippi's recidivism rate for parolees and others not
in official custody is now at 34 percent.

As of December, 1,711 inmates were on earned release supervision.

In the last two weeks, two men released from prison this year were
rearrested and charged with serious crimes.

Raphael McKinley, 35, is charged in the Dec. 7 stabbing death of his
girlfriend, Doris Sanchez, at the home they shared in Crystal Springs.

In 1995, McKinley was charged in the stabbing death of his wife,
Alma Jean McKinley, in Jackson. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter in
1997 and was sentenced to serve 17 years in prison.

McKinley was released from prison in June on earned released
supervision, which meant he had to report to a probation/parole
officer routinely.

Also, the man accused of robbing the main branch of AmSouth Bank in
downtown Jackson on Dec. 7 had been out of prison five months and is
still on probation.

Jay Johnson, 24, was arrested after the bank in the AmSouth Plaza
building was robbed.

"You are going to have some recidivism," Epps said. "We bring in
9,000 and let out 8,500 each year."