TUTWILER — Up to 375 maximum security inmates have been relocated from the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman to the 2,672-bed Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility here.
The agreement could result in payments of from $50,000 to more than $150,000 to a local government entity.
The Mississippi Department of Corrections reported that the relocation of the state inmates from Parchman's Unit 29 to Tutwiler was completed Sunday, Jan. 12, under terms of a contract inked between MDOC and CoreCivic, the Nashville-based private prison management company which owns and operates the Tutwiler lockup.
The contract began Jan. 8 and has an initial term of 90 days, which may be extended for up to two additional 90-day periods. MDOC said it will cost the state more than $2 million to house the inmates at Tutwiler for 90 days.
The deal is said to be among the steps the MDOC is taking to maintain order in the wake of the recent unrest in the state prison system.
Damon Stroud, president of the Tallahatchie County Correctional Authority (TCCA), the liaison between CoreCivic and county government, said the new contract is welcomed.
“We had open beds at the Tutwiler facility and are certainly glad that they will now be filled, which will, of course, benefit the county from the additional revenue generated by the daily per diem payments,” Stroud said.
CoreCivic pays TCCA $1.50 per day for each state inmate housed in Tutwiler and $2.15 per day for each federal prisoner incarcerated there.
The prison company has contracts for the Tallahatchie facility with the states of Mississippi, South Carolina, Vermont, Virgin Islands and Wyoming, according to Amanda Gilchrist, director of public affairs for CoreCivic.
Gilchrist said there are federal contracts for Tutwiler between CoreCivic and the U.S. Marshals Service as well as U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.
Tallahatchie County also contracts with CoreCivic to house locally arrested prisoners in a special jail section of the prison.
Assuming the new contract between MDOC and CoreCivic results in the full 375 state inmates being housed at Tutwiler, the TCCA would receive about $50,625 from CoreCivic during the initial 90-day term. If the contract gets extended to the full 270 days possible under the agreement, the TCCA would stand to get about $151,875 from CoreCivic.
The TCCA is the conduit through which CoreCivic money flows to Tallahatchie County government.
In 2019 alone, the Authority passed along to county coffers nearly $1.383 million in per diem monies paid by CoreCivic.
IN THE PHOTO: The Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility at Tutwiler is pictured in the background of this photo taken in May 23, 2018. (File photo by Clay McFerrin)
