A recent column on the Empower Mississippi website included good proposals to address two significant problems: crime in the state and the number of people in prison.
Writer Wil Ervin noted that Mississippi has the highest rate of homicides in the nation. FBI data reports a 66% increase in this rate between 2017 and 2020. As for incarceration, he said the number of people behind bars in Mississippi has more than doubled since 1990, and the state locks up people at a higher rate than either Russia or China.
“If incarceration was the answer to improving public safety, Mississippi should be the safest place in the world to live,” Ervin observed.
Although Mississippi is spending up to $400 million a year on corrections, the costs of locking up people can involve more than money.
Children of imprisoned people are more likely to come from a poverty background and to perform poorly in school. And people who get out of prison often face large barriers to returning to society, often involving simple things like finding a place to live or getting a job.
Ervin makes a number of ambitious proposals that he believes could help Mississippi improve its criminal justice record:
• Properly fund law enforcement in order to pay officers well, and focus on community policing to build trust and deter crime.
• Put a priority on violent crime. Ervin says 41% of Mississippi inmates are behind bars for drug-related or other non-violent offenses. “This suggests that limited resources are being ineffectually prioritized to address drug and non-violent offenses rather than violent offenses,” he wrote.
• Address mental health and drug addiction issues at the local level. Ervin cited state figures that say only 6% of drug violations in 2022 were for selling narcotics. Most of the rest were for possessing, concealing or using them. Said Ervin, “Perhaps we should talk more about providing substance-use disorder and mental health services to both prevent crime and reduce recidivism than expanding incarceration and lengthening sentences.”
• Expand programs that prepare inmates to return normally to society upon their release. Ervin specifically said work-release programs have reduced repeat offenses and improved public safety.
• Attack “overincarceration” by applying effective parole policies. Ervin said an average of 74% of inmates who applied for parole in 2019, 2020 and 2021 got it. That number literally got cut in half in 2022, to 37%. There has to be some middle ground on this issue.
It’s surprising to see a conservative website like Empower Mississippi take this stand. But one of the group’s core values says “every citizen should receive fairness, equity, and a path to redemption from our justice system.” It’s impossible to disagree with that position.
Neither Ervin nor anyone else is contending that violent criminals should get early parole. There is a place for the incorrigible among us, and that place is behind bars.
But something’s wrong when Mississippi has the highest rate of incarceration in the country. Ervin pointed out our most serious problems and offered some logical solutions.
The biggest challenge will be money. Will property owners support local tax increases to “properly fund” law enforcement? Will the state put more focus on treating mental health and addiction issues? Would any of these changes improve the public’s sense of safety?
All that is difficult to predict, but we do know one thing: We have to try something different.
— Jack Ryan, McComb Enterprise-Journal
