The members of the Vicksburg Branch NAACP investigated the need for a new Warren County Jail after we received information that the third floor of the Warren County Jail is still vacant.

On Dec. 21 Sheriff Martin Pace granted our request for a tour. The Warren County Jail is overcrowded, dark and gloomy (like a jail), but there is no lack of space for expansion. The reports of a vacant third floor are correct.

The sheriff and board of supervisors have not fulfilled their plans from 2002 when a new roof and third floor were added to the jail with plans to later finish the third floor to house additional inmates. We have published statements from Sheriff Pace and Board President Richard George printed in The Vicksburg Post from September 2000 through March 2002.  “It would be unwise to spend an enormous amount of money and not add the third floor,” George said. Sheriff Pace was quoted as saying, “The third floor will eventually house more inmates.” The board of supervisors has spent $1.4 million on the new roof with a third floor addition and a new alarm system to cover the third floor.

John Shorter is president of the Vicksburg Branch, NAACP. E-mail him.

After the tour and speaking with Sheriff Pace, we are of the understanding that the jail’s main problems are bed space and safety concerns in an emergency, not sanitation and health. The bed space problem can be resolved for now with the third floor completion.

The third floor can house 50 to 100 inmates, depending on the layout of either cells or open barracks. The sheriff’s department only reserves 20 beds in Issaquena County.

Sheriff Pace also agreed that future expansion could be accomplished by purchasing property on the jail’s south side or by closing Adams Street in the rear of the jail and using county property. Addressing safety issues by retrofitting the older parts of the jail are more financially feasible. There are companies that specialize in this process. We must also remember the Warren County Jail is a landmark with grandfather status on many issues and cannot be torn down.

A 50-acre site for a jail is not justified without a regional jail status and a contract with the Mississippi Department of Corrections to house state inmates.  MDOC has a huge surplus of beds right now and has canceled or reduced contracts with surrounding regional facilities.

Jefferson-Franklin County Regional Correctional Facility has a 350-bed capacity along with sheriff’s offices on six acres of land. When you take into account the before-mentioned statements, the whole 50-acre site proposal for Warren County is overkill and wasteful. We, the members of the Vicksburg Branch NAACP, on behalf of the residents of Warren County, are asking the Warren County Board of Supervisors and the Warren County sheriff to realize the error in the continued funding and support of a new jail on a 50-acre tract of land in the county.  

The board and Sheriff Pace deserve blame for wasting taxpayers’ money without the completion and housing of inmates on the third floor of the jail on Cherry Street. The board of supervisors is misleading the residents of Warren County on the projected cost of the new jail and by only pointing out $1 million in additional funding of staff for the projected new jail. The more important omission is the amount of the yearly repayment of any bond or loan the Warren County Board of Supervisors approves.

Residents of Warren County, please contact your supervisor and have him to explain where the repayment of a minimum $4 million annually and $1 million for staff yearly will come from based on our $30 million bond estimation.  Every $1 million in new annual spending in this endeavor shall result in a $20 to $80 property tax increase. The residents of Warren County must become informed and understand that we are all blameworthy if we allow the board of supervisors and the sheriff to do things that are financially inefficient. 

Finish the third floor first!  Local government must fully utilize what it has with efficiency before acquiring more.