Kudos to Rep. Becky Currie for taking up for neglected inmates. She is actually going against the prevailing winds of Trumpworld in doing so, too. Seems the prevailing winds of Trumpworld include "make 'em suffer!"
With that mindset, a better name for the Department of Corrections would be Department of Revenge. I know there is no one in prison for "singing too loud in church," as my now deceased boss, Randy Hendrix of the Department of Mental Health was fond of saying, but even he had more than insignificant dose of human compassion for prisoners.
I am convinced Burl Cain knows what to do to turn it from the Department of Revenge to the Department of Corrections, and am reasonably sure privatizing medical care to a firm whose profits go up as care goes down is not something with which he agrees.
And air-conditioning, clean water, and decent food. Yes, I know there are lots of citizens without air-conditioning, but they can avoid the worst of the heat in a myriad of other ways. Prisoners cannot. Much of the violence in prison would be gone away with just making prison less miserable. Fortunately, I don't know that from experience, but I read a lot and remember some of it.
People who are cooped up, denied clean water and decent food, and constantly miserable from heat in the summer are going to be more violent than those who are not. Meeting those needs would be worth the cost in the reduction of violence against other prisoners and guards. At least I think so from what reading I have done on the subject, some of which was written by leaders in the corrections industry. I would like to know what Mr. Cain thinks.
A former Mississippi Corrections leader once said "we need to find out who we're scared of and who we're just mad at and incarcerate accordingly." Ironically, even though nobody was scared of him, he ended up incarcerated with a 19 year federal sentence for corruption. I am not suggesting he be paroled, but is anybody scared of him? Yes, he should receive punishment, but the goal of the system should be to restore prisoners to productive life as well, not just to get revenge.
How many current prisoners fit that paradigm? Would a sentence other than incarceration be more effective and less expensive to the state in those cases? Frankly, I never was a afraid of him nor all that mad. Mainly just real disappointed.
On Immigration:
Suppose Egypt had adopted a border policy similar to ours around the time of Jesus. They might have had a wall or fences, soldiers with chariots and pointy weapons, couple of openings for people to apply for entrance.
Here comes Joseph, Mary, and Jesus, and likely a few more families with young sons, fleeing Herod's order to kill them all. Bible doesn't say others went (or I missed it), but surely others had that same thought. God might not have told them to do it like He did Joseph, but you have to believe they thought of it.
They arrive claiming asylum from a sentence of death for their young son. The Egyptians hand them a sheaf of papyrus to fill out and promise to turn it in. "Meanwhile," they say, "stay on THAT side of the wall."
"But where will we sleep and what will we eat and drink?" they ask. "That's YOUR problem," is the response.
"How long will it take to process our application?" Joseph asks. "No telling," is the reply. "DOGE butchered our work force and ain't NOTHIN' happenin' very quickly. Could be months."
Yes, I know we have to have a border. I know we have to have a process to admit non-citizens. I know we have to have a process to naturalize citizens. But does it all have to be so obtuse and time consuming? We also have to have roofers, crop pickers, etc., like that man who had three sons in the USMC but who, even after living here without papers for something like 30 years and holding down a productive job as a self-employed landscaper, got thrown to the ground, beat up, and hauled off to detention.
Seems to me like families with children, or even single adults, who are willing to risk life and limb to come here just to take jobs Americans won't take would make pretty good citizens. I know they don't speak English but we didn't speak any Native American languages when we arrived and the Indians didn't keep us out. Didn't make us fill out a bunch of forms, either. (I bet they wish they had, though.)
But what about the crime? Undocumented immigrants commit fewer crimes per capita than native born citizens.
Glynn Kegley is a Rankin County Northsider.
