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MS: Assistant DA hleps to reduce jail overcrowding

By Real Cost of Prisons Project (The Sentencing Project)

ADA helps Rankin jail reduce crowding Clarion-Ledger October 20, 2008 BRANDON ? The number of inmates at Rankin County's jail last week hit 380 - 71 inmates above the jail's suggested 309 capacity. But that number could have been higher if not for the county's new assistant district attorney, Dan Duggan, who so far this year has shifted 125 of the county's oldest cases into plea bargains or verdicts. That's 125 fewer people filling the jail at taxpayers' expense. And it's good news to county officials who worry the jail's $7 million, 96-bed expansion - which will be completed early next year - won't be empty long. "It'll probably be full the first 10 minutes it opens," quipped District 2 Supervisor Wood Brown. The criminal histories of the 125 inmates run the gamut, but what they have in common is their lengthy stays - 400 days, 600 days, 800 days and even 1,300 days - in what should be short-term lockup...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog on October 20, 2008 (boomark / email).