FILE - In this July 21, 2010, photo, employees leave the front gate of the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman, Miss. An inmate at the Mississippi prison that was a focus of recent deadly unrest was found hanging in his cell by two corrections officers over the weekend and pronounced dead, a coroner said Sunday, Jan. 19, 2020. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)
- The Senate Corrections Committee also kept a bill alive to create a Corrections Overview Task Force.
Inmates in Mississippi could benefit from a two-sentence bill passed by the Senate Correction Committee Thursday morning during a less than three-minute meeting.
HB 1444, which unanimously passed the House of Representatives, states, “The Mississippi Department of Corrections shall maintain written policies and procedures for providing appropriate personal protective equipment to inmates handling cleaning chemicals and supplies.”
This requirement would apply to raw cleaning materials.
If signed into law, the measure authored by State Rep. Justis Gibbs (D) would take effect and be in force from and after its passage.
“I believe there is still some work to be done on this bill,” said State Senator Lydia Chassaniol (R), vice chair of the Senate committee, standing in for Corrections Committee Chair State Senator Juan Barnett (D) who was out for medical reasons.
State Senator Joey Fillingane (R) moved to amend the bill to add a reverse repealer, allowing more time to “converse with the chairman and others” before advancing the bill out of the Senate.
The Senate Corrections Committee also kept HB 1739 alive. The bill would create a Corrections Overview Task Force.
Authored by State Rep. Becky Currie (R), chair of the House Corrections Committee, the task force, among other provisions, would be charged with analyzing data concerning complaints received by the Department of Corrections related to deaths, suicides and suicide attempts of inmates; tracking and assessing outcomes from the recommendations in the Corrections and Criminal Justice Task Force report of December 2013; analyzing data related to parole issues and case manager plan effectiveness for inmates to determine the transition readiness of inmates once paroled; analyzing data related to illegal drug use of inmates while incarcerated; and analyzing data related to programs offered to inmates, such programs shall include, but are not limited to, educational and rehabilitative.
Senator Fillingane again amended the measure to add a reverse repealer to allow Chairman Barnett and others to examine the bill futher.
“But for the sake of keeping it moving, I’ll add a reverse repealer,” he said.
The task force bill also unanimously passed in the House of Representative earlier this month. Both bills now head to the Senate floor for consideration.
Daniel Tyson
