Video: The Largest Regional Jail In North Mississippi

CHICKASAW COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – There are fifteen regional jails in Mississippi, and in the heart of a small county lies the largest one in north Mississippi.

The Chickasaw County Jail is unique because it’s both a county and regional jail.

Many changes have taken place within the past year, but the jail’s role in the area hasn’t changed.

The jail can hold 125 county inmates and 340 state inmates, but usually only houses 60 to 70 county inmates and 240 state inmates.

One hundred empty beds. When the Mississippi Department of Corrections removed one hundred state inmates, the county took a big hit.

“Chickasaw County lost between nine hundred and a million dollars, just on revenue that was coming in for the jail, so it really caused us to have to re-evaluate our regional budget, so I mean like I say, right now, we have to run like a business because we don’t want to go in the hole, and we don’t want to cost taxpayers any money,” says Chickasaw County Sheriff, James Meyers.

When surrounding county jails get full, those extra inmates are transferred to the Chickasaw County Jail.

“We have a fee that we do charge per day. I mean it’s a nominal fee because like I say, we assume all responsibility for them, so it’s a win, win situation for both agencies,” says Meyers.

Right now, there are a few murder suspects from surrounding counties here, that means Chickasaw law enforcement has some homework to do before they can house them.

“They may be kin to somebody that works here, and we have to cover all of that, and plus, there may be another inmate here in the family that’s kin to either the victim or suspect, so sometimes we have to do a lot of checking on things like that,” says Meyers.

Inmates only bring in an extra $20 dollars per day, a small fraction of that money lost from the state inmate cutbacks.

“It’s not really enough for us to say, ‘yeah we’re going to be able to budget one hundred inmates a month from other agencies,’ because we just don’t have that turn over here, and like I say, some weekends, we house 15 extra inmates, and then some weekends we might house none, it just depends,” says Meyers.