JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) - State inmates will soon play a major role in cleaning up highways in the city of Jackson.
It comes as part of an agreement between the Department of Corrections, the Department of Transportation, and the city.
“For far too long, Jackson residents have been complaining about a city which is filled with litter. A dirty city. Jackson residents often ask me time and time again, ‘What happened to the inmates that used to pick up litter many years ago?’” Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said. “I’d like to thank both Commissioner Willie Simmons and also Sheriff Tyree Jones along with several members of our solid waste team and constituent services for bringing forward an agreement that now allows MDOC inmates to help clean up our city streets.”
A similar agreement was announced earlier this month between those same departments and Hinds County.
The way the program works is that MDOC allows inmates to be transported from its facilities to cleanup sites, and MDOT will pay both the county and the city $50,000 annually for providing people to supervise the detainees.
“We do encourage the citizens not to put trash out simply because we have a team that’s going to be picking up trash. You do your part in working to keep the city of Jackson beautiful,” MDOT Commissioner Willie Simmons said. “However, when that trash does hit the streets, the state highways, and interstates, we’re going to have two forces that are going to be able to go out and make it work to clean it up.”
The Hinds County Sheriff’s Office will provide transportation, personnel, and security for both the city and county until the city can bring on its own personnel for the project.All stakeholders encouraged residents and organizations to continue their efforts in cleaning up litter in their areas because the project only includes highways and areas near highways within the county and city.
“This is a tremendous lift and boost to our efforts to make sure that our city is clean and aesthetically pleasing. However, this does not provide street cleaning on every street in the city of Jackson and so I don’t want Jackson residents believing that’s what this is,” Lumumba said.