MDOC inmates to help pick up trash in Jackson - WAPT Jackson

MDOC inmates to help pick up trash in Jackson

MDOC inmates to help pick up trash in Jackson

Updated: 1:22 PM CDT Sep 27, 2023

Afternoon and thank you for joining us for this special announcement. For far too long. Jackson residents have been complaining about *** city which is filled with litter. *** dirty city. Jackson residents often ask me time and time again what happened to the inmates? Those detainees at Hines County Detention Center that used to pick up litter. Many years ago. The Hinds County Sheriff's Department has been restricted from using those inmates for some time now. And so we have lost the benefit of their assistance in keeping our city clean. I'd like to thank both Commissioner Willie Simmons and also Sheriff Tyree Jones along with several members of our solid waste team and constituent services for bringing forward an agreement that now allows MD OC inmates to help clean up our city streets. We're grateful because it helps with the aesthetic appeal and making our city welcoming to those that visit our city. And so I'm thankful for their hard work. This has been in the works for more than six months or so. Uh *** little longer than that. And Commissioner Simmons is well aware the disdain that I have for litter in the city. Uh because he's often on the receiving end of calls. Uh, every time I call him about *** corridor that I want to see cleaned up. And so I want to thank them both for their commitment for their insistence on making this happen. The Sheriff's Department is aiding us by providing the supervision of those inmates while they are cleaning those streets that they will be responsible for. And so I want our residents to know that this is the definition of operational unity. It is an opportunity where we focus on our common ends and objectives in order to get the job done for our residents. And so I want to applaud both these gentlemen and the people that I mentioned for their good work. I want to step aside first for Commissioner Simmons to talk about this program and then, uh, Sheriff Jones, if you will say *** few words, thank you. Thank you mayor. Let me say as commissioner of the central district and having the capital city here in Jackson as part of that, which I consider to be the glue and the connector for the state. I'm so elated today that this collaboration is producing this kind of coordination and team work that we're gonna be working to keep the city of Jackson beautiful. Uh, the Department of Transportation has *** litter beautification program and working in conjunction with that department, uh and taking *** look at the city of Jackson. The mayor is correct. Uh every time he has, uh, *** big event in the city of Jackson where *** lot of folks are coming in, tourists, potential citizens and businesses. He's very concerned about the first thing that they see which oftentimes is trash on our interstate system and our highways. This program, *** collective operation between the city of Jackson, the county, the sheriff department, Sheff Jones has an agreement along with the Department of Correction. We have been able to pull together *** program that's going to truly move towards keeping Jackson beautiful and keeping the litter and the trash off of our state highways and our interstate system, Department of Transportation. We provide *** $50,000 grant to the city of Jackson as well as to the sheriff department. So for *** total of $100,000 we're gonna have offenders coming out of the Department of Correction with Commissioner Keynes, uh, being an agreement that we will be able to pull offenders out of there. We're gonna be able to pay an individual who will be working with the city and the county to supervise those offenders. So we're really gonna have two teams working here in the city of Jackson on our real estate system and our state highways to keep it. This is gonna make *** difference and I'm so excited to hang up. She Jones, uh, the chief of police from Jackson, the mayor, uh, and the Department of Correction working in conjunction with the Department of Transportation is one dream that we had and one that we know is going to work. Well, now we do encourage the citizen not to put trash out simply because we have *** team that's going to be picking up trash. You do your part in working to keep the city of Jackson beautiful. However, when that trash do hit the streets, the state highways and the interstate, we're gonna have *** force. two forces are going to be able to go out and make it work to clean it up. So once again, Jeff Jones, thank you so much, man. We can't say how much we appreciate you. Also giving thanks to Commissioner Cain Department of Correction and his absent and I have *** staff who works on *** daily basis, uh, with the little program and keeping Jackson. Beautiful. Thanks to you and the citizen. We're going to have *** beautiful city here in the city of Jackson except thank you all. I think that we also made this announcement about three weeks ago regarding our efforts in this partnership with Commissioner Simmons Mississippi Department of our Corrections as well. And since we made that announcement, we have been effectively cleaning the highways in the city of Jackson and throughout all of Highs County as well, I think this will be our fourth week going into this operation. We have gone to state facilities and picked up uh, inmates and we transported them to the clean up areas. So I'm very proud of this operation and this partnership that we have been able to put together to once again keep the city of Jackson beautiful and to keep Mississippi beautiful as well. And I will tell you some of the areas that we have covered. We have covered the I 55 frontage road corridor. We've covered the highway 82 20 metro center uh corridor and we've also done highway 18 as well. So we will have *** new location that we will be covering this week. That will be here in the city of Jackson. So I'm very, very excited once again about this partnership and I look forward to continuing this partnership. Well, because as the mayor stated, we have been restrained as it relates to uh detainee or inmate labor, but it's good that we've been able to be creative to work collaboratively with other agencies to provide this right here in Highs County in the city of Jackson. I think when you go on the other side and you go to Madison County, Rankin County and other counties throughout the state, you see some of these operations in place. So it's good for us to have our own operation. I'm very proud of everybody that put this together. And again, I'm looking forward to the continued progress that we have made and that we will continue to make right here in the city of Jackson and Highs County as well. Thank you all. I want to conclude with *** few things. One to the point that Commissioner Simmons made about asking residents not to put the litter on the streets in the first place. I remember my mother used to say to me that if you don't care for your house, no one else will. And so we have to remember that first and foremost. Uh secondly, I want to set expectations, right? Uh This is *** tremendous lift and *** boost to our efforts to make sure that our city is clean and aesthetically pleasing. Uh This does not provide street cleaning on every street in the city of Jackson, right? And so I don't want Jackson residents believing that that's what this is. And then lastly, I want to remind you, we met some time earlier this summer where we had *** city wide clean up and we encourage residents to clean up in the various parts of the city. And we had *** very strong representation of residents that were cleaning up across the city. And we told you at that time that that was not the end of our efforts. We said that we would try to reach different agreements so that we could have an ongoing effort towards cleaning this up. Not only do we now have this agreement, we have nonprofit groups like New Way, Mississippi that helps us clean up. And so we still have to put more effort into this, this process of keeping our city clean. But today is *** bright day. Today is *** cleaner day uh for the city of Jackson. And we're excited and I thank you, gentlemen for your hard work and support. And of course, I thank the members of our solid waste team and our constituent services division and our city attorney's office who helped put this agreement together for their hard work with that. If you have any questions, we're ready to take them, Mr Mayor, this is clean up. The labor used to have them back in the past, it was done away. We've gotten away from, I'm not sure if you know why. And so the help that was provided back then was *** big help. We got away from it. You know, here we are now. What brought this back, what made it legal again? Well, I'm going to stray away from giving too much history that isn't in, in, in my purview. I think I'll let the sheriff speak in it. So when this program was in effect, uh before the Highs County Detention Center were responsible for housing state detainees. We are only responsible for housing pretrial detainees right now. Constitutionally, we cannot use pretrial detainees for work labor because they have not been convicted of *** crime that they are presently being incarcerated for. So therefore, we cannot use them for worse labor. *** lot of this happened uh when the, the Hines County County went under the consent decree with DOJ and when the state came and removed their inmates from our facilities. So that's why we're not able to do that. And another thing that I need to reiterate while I'm here speaking, since we started this program, I've had several organizations, neighborhood associations to contact us to see if they can use the inmate labor for neighborhood cleanups. They are restricted from, from doing that. It's only for the state highway cleanup. We cannot put them with any other organization and have them participate in any type of our community or neighborhood cleanups. However, we do support those cleanups and we will provide resources to them as the mayor stated, but we will not be able to use inmate labor for community or neighborhood cleanups. I just have to and you ask *** good question. Uh It, it came back because of the desire of the sheriff and the mayor to help pick up the, the we spent last year on *** single contract for one pickup department of Transportation $100,000. Uh We cannot afford to do that. Uh So we came up with *** better way. Uh The commissioners, we increased the amount of money that we could give to $50,000. So each of the individuals, the sheriff department as well as the city will get $50,000 *** year each. Uh We went to the Department of Correction because the sheriff was restricted to not being able to use offenders. So we went to Commissioner Kane and all of us met the city, the county sheriff, we met with the commissioner and he agreed that he would make inmates available and all we had to do is go pick those inmates up and he would provide assistance to those inmates and help them to feed them. So it's *** good collaboration and that's why we were able to bring it back and it's going to save us money while at the same time, keep Jackson if I can add something else, one, I want to be very, very clear um that uh as we try to, you know, create this agreement, both of these individuals were supportive from the very start. Uh Commissioner Simmons, uh as I said, I call him quite frequently. I want you to know that he is always responsive to the calls that I provide to him going as far as trying to let us know what their schedules are working within the restrictions that he has financially. And so we even had *** meeting uh with some of our faith based leaders. And so I am now making AAA plea, right? I am challenging our faith based leaders. You have members of your congregation, you have people who want to serve their communities, you can clean up just around your church. And so for those areas that these, this inmate labor is not sufficient or it cannot work, let's now challenge our congregations our faith based institutions to pick up the slack. Let's make sure that we not only clean up our city on an occasion, but make sure we routinely clean up our community every single month, time and time again. And so I'm calling out so all of those pastors that call me that want to be *** part of initiatives. Uh If you want me to be *** part of what you, what you're proposing and I'm willing to do that. I'm asking that you be *** part of cleaning up our city and that we make sure that Jackson is the beautiful city that it represents, the beautiful city that we all know that it is and it should be. Yes, sir. Um, this might be getting in the weeds. But do you know how many, um, inmates at any given time will be picking up? And how many days per week and stuff like that? Sounds like another question I need to step away from. Right. So, so as of right now, we're just doing one day *** week is what we've been doing, but we're doing several hours within that one day and it just depends on how many inmates are available. We're going to *** work center in Madison County, *** state work center and picking up the inmates and transporting them back into Jackson. But we look forward to having anywhere from probably 3 to 5 every time that we go out and do *** trash pickup, I think last week we, we went and did one along the 55 south corridors. Some of the inmates were not available. They were in class, but we did have manpower out there. And I saw one guy, he was out there and he was picking up paper and he was putting in trash bags and I had my people out there and everything was going good. So it just depends on how many are available. But we would like to have anywhere from 3 to 5 at any given time and they're given *** certain mile radius that they will cover when they go out and pick the trash up as well. Question, how are you, what is the criteria by which you determine what inmates that you're going to pick up? Are they trustees or are they people short timers or non violent crimes? And the second thing is how are they being compensated other than maybe getting an extra or whatever? Are they getting, you know, additional funds? Are they getting money in their canteen? I mean, what exactly is going to be done? Uh Commission Kane, they have *** program, uh, where offenders when they're working and get some time off of their sentences in some cases, uh Commission cain committed to providing food for the offenders and if they're in *** program where they can be given additional incentives, then he will provide that, uh, we won't be doing that through, uh, the sheriff or the police department or the Department of Transportation that's left strictly up to Department of Correction to fit within their guidelines. Uh, how many, or how long is the, uh, agreement in place for? Uh, we're gonna give the $50,000 to each component, uh, annually. Uh, so this program can go on forever and we want to go on forever because there's *** lot of trash, uh, to be picked up. Uh, I saw the sheriff, uh, the second day in which we announced this program when they had teams out there and I rode by and I saw the number of bags of damage that had been picked up and it is humongous. Yes. So we, we intend to continue this program and who all gets the $50,000 the city of Jackson and the Sheriff Department and that they'll, they'll be able to get that annually coming from the Department of Transportation. That's our incentive to motivate the mayor. You know, he, he, he doesn't need $50,000. His budget is so big, but that's our incentive to, to move the program and to be able to get *** personnel that they can assign, uh, to this team to work. So we are very grateful that we're able to, to do that, but it save us money long term. And sheriff, you said that they're doing *** new location this week. Do you know what location that would be? I don't I will know by the end of the day, what what location that it will be. But uh I I, you right. So I don't, I don't have *** location right now, but by the end of the day, we will have *** location. And if you all would like for us to announce that location, I would gladly make an announcement of where they will be, but we look forward to probably ha happen tomorrow throughout the day at some point. Any more questions? One last thank you. I want to thank the not only those inmates that will be helping to clean up our city. I certainly want to thank our law enforcement professionals who will help with the supervision be out there for long hours ensuring that the city is cleaned up.

MDOC inmates to help pick up trash in Jackson

Updated: 1:22 PM CDT Sep 27, 2023

Under an agreement with state and county officials, state inmates will pick up trash in the city of Jackson.Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba was joined Wednesday by Transportation Commissioner Willie Simmons and Hinds County Sheriff Tyree Jones to make the announcement. Lumumba said the deal had been in the works for about six months."The Sheriff's Office will be aiding us by providing the supervision of those inmates while they're cleaning up those streets for which they are responsible," Lumumba said. Jones announced a similar program earlier this month that uses Mississippi Department of Corrections inmates to clean up state roads in the county. The sheriff said that since then, the inmate crews have cleaned up the Interstate 55 frontage road corridor, the Highway 80 and Interstate 220 Metrocenter corridor and Highway 18. Jones said there will be new locations added this week in the city of Jackson."This does not provide street cleaning on every street in the city of Jackson," Lumumba said. "I don't want residents to think that's what this is."The mayor said there will be an ongoing effort for the community and faith-based institutions to help out by cleaning up areas of the city.Simmons said the Mississippi Department of Transportation is providing $50,000 annually to the city and the county to maintain the program.

JACKSON, Miss. —

Under an agreement with state and county officials, state inmates will pick up trash in the city of Jackson.

Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba was joined Wednesday by Transportation Commissioner Willie Simmons and Hinds County Sheriff Tyree Jones to make the announcement. Lumumba said the deal had been in the works for about six months.

"The Sheriff's Office will be aiding us by providing the supervision of those inmates while they're cleaning up those streets for which they are responsible," Lumumba said.

Jones announced a similar program earlier this month that uses Mississippi Department of Corrections inmates to clean up state roads in the county. The sheriff said that since then, the inmate crews have cleaned up the Interstate 55 frontage road corridor, the Highway 80 and Interstate 220 Metrocenter corridor and Highway 18. Jones said there will be new locations added this week in the city of Jackson.

"This does not provide street cleaning on every street in the city of Jackson," Lumumba said. "I don't want residents to think that's what this is."

The mayor said there will be an ongoing effort for the community and faith-based institutions to help out by cleaning up areas of the city.

Simmons said the Mississippi Department of Transportation is providing $50,000 annually to the city and the county to maintain the program.