BARBOUR: POLICE NEED MONEY

He Favors Moving Inmates To Regional Prisons

DIAMONDHEAD - If elected governor, Republican candidate Haley Barbour vows
to use the office's bully pulpit to increase funding for state drug
enforcement agencies and encourage faith-based rehabilitative programs for
prisoners.

Trekking across the state Thursday to outline his law enforcement views,
Barbour took a thinly veiled swipe at Gov. Ronnie Musgrove before a small
crowd at the Mississippi Deputy Sheriff's Conference in Diamondhead.

"Law enforcement has been short-changed the last four years," Barbour said,
pointing to a recent 41 percent budget cut imposed upon the Mississippi
Bureau of Narcotics. "If there's another agency that's been cut by 41
percent, I'd be shocked."

Barbour said the state needs a leader who will face up to the problems
created by drugs, which he said account for nearly 80 percent of all crimes
in Mississippi.

"It is the main cause for the crime wave we're experiencing," he said,
adding that he would work to reduce the demand for drugs.

Barbour also advocated steering more inmates to regional or privately run
prisons, where they can be housed at about 75 percent of the cost of those
at Parchman, the state penitentiary. The move, he said, would also help
distribute funds more equitably to communities across the state, which
depend on state housing payments to offset their share of the prisons'
construction costs.

On rehabilitative measures, Barbour invoked the image of Nancy Reagan,
saying the state needed to do more to teach children and prisoners the
dangers of drugs. He said he would act to increase the role played by
faith-based drug treatment programs in state, regional and private prisons.

"Prison ministries can be very effective at reducing recidivism, but we need
to go beyond that to reduce demand for drugs before there's ever a crime,"
he said.

To that end, Barbour said he would use the governor's "bully pulpit" to
encourage more pastors and community leaders to join the fight on drugs.

"If we're going to solve our drug problem, we're all going to have to be
part of the solution," he said.