JACKSON — Officials with the Mississippi Department of Corrections say two companies are bidding to manage the state’s four privately operated prisons. One is the current operator, Utah-based Management and Training Corp. The second is New Jersey-based Community Education Centers. MTC got $59.3 million last year to run East Mississippi Correctional Facility, Marshall County Correctional Facility and Walnut Grove Correctional ...

JACKSON — Gov. Phil Bryant yesterday signed a bill designed to make the criminal justice system more efficient and less expensive. Bryant said House Bill 585, which becomes law July 1, will protect public safety and could save the state $266 million in prison expenses, spread over 10 years. The bill is modeled on criminal-justice changes made in recent years ...

JACKSON — Mississippi’s prison and mental health systems and Medicaid program are seeking millions of extra dollars to get through the budget year, then more money on top of that for the coming year. Agency leaders appeared yesterday before the Joint Legislative Budget Committee to request money for fiscal year 2014, which ends June 30, and for fiscal 2015, which ...

Come July, four Mississippi communities will lose almost $18 million in free labor. The Mississippi Department of Corrections announced in late April that it was closing four of its community work centers – in Yazoo City, Cleveland, Lucedale and Fayette – to cut costs. Corrections commissioner Chris Epps said the closures would save his agency $2.3 million. The centers will ...