The 11th Circuit Drug Court, which started a year ago, is scheduled to receive a much needed $450,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice. The 11th Circuit, which includes Bolivar, Coahoma, Quitman and Tunica counties, will utilize the grant to expand the Drug Court Program. Eleven participants from Bolivar and Coahoma counties are already enrolled in Drug Court. The three-year grant, which began Sept. 1 and runs through Aug. 31, 2007, is provided by the Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs. The 11th Circuit Drug Court has previously operated entirely with volunteers and no budget, according to Becky Cochran, court administrator. [continues 556 words]
Want to know the difference teamwork makes? There's probably a lot of prison-bound drug pushers from Bolivar County who can answer that question for you. Formerly, drug busts in Bolivar County seemed like rare news events. Today, thanks to dedicated local, county and state officers, who make up a drug task force, drug busts have almost become commonplace around here. The latest drug pusher to feel the heat is one who is now missing several thousand dollars worth of marijuana, thanks to the team effort. [continues 167 words]
Someone has been threatening the life of Ruleville Police Chief Ronnie Robinson. Fortunately for the citizens of Ruleville, Robinson doesn't scare easily and says he's not backing down. The police chief has been waging his own war on drugs in the Sunflower County town, and speculates the threatening phone calls, notes and rumors around town stem from arrests made in the fight to keep the streets of Ruleville drug free. Robinson said most of the crimes that occur in the town are related - either directly or indirectly - to drugs. [continues 502 words]
"It's amazing how a little town like Rosedale can be connected to a place like Nantucket," said Detective Jerry Mack, of the Nantucket Police Department in an article about drug trafficking in The Inquirer and Mirror, a newspaper in Nantucket, Mass. Anthony Gibson, the director of the Rosedale Police Department, said he found out that the article had been published after one of his officers brought him a copy he had printed from the Internet. The officer discovered the article after high school students in Rosedale were passing around their own copies at West Bolivar High School. [continues 987 words]
'When Mercy Seasons Justice' Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, whose term ends Tuesday, has been mum about the hundreds of requests he's received for clemency, but nonetheless we hope he has given some serious thought to the more deserving requests. One meritorious case may be that of Freddie "Mickey" Sparks, who has served 22 years of a 65-year sentence in the State Penitentiary at Parchman. The sentence carried with it a stipulation that Sparks was to serve a mandatory 30 years. His crimes were two counts of selling cocaine and one count of possessing the substance. [continues 345 words]
After years of throwing the book at drug addicts, judges are now throwing them a lifeline, according to a panel of four members of the Bolivar County Drug Court who spoke before the Cleveland Exchange Club on Thursday. "Judges realize that the old process of incarceration and more incarceration is not working," said Becky Cochran, co-coordinator of the drug court program and part of the panel that met yesterday at the Cleveland Country Club. Bolivar County's drug court began in September 2003 under the direction of Circuit Court Judge Albert Smith III as a way to help local addicts recover and as a way to reduce the amount of non-violent offenders in the already overcrowded and underfinanced prison system. [continues 584 words]
The Bolivar County Board of Supervisors "reaped" the benefits of the partnership the Bolivar County Sheriff's Department and Cleveland Police Department in the form of a check presented Monday. The check, in the amount of $5,348, will actually be deposited into a special fund account used specifically to help combat drugs. The money was acquired from drug seizures, which occurred during the past year, since the two entities united. "Most people don't see the hard and long hours these officers keep," said Sheriff H.M. "Mack" Grimmett. "A lot of times they work late nights and early mornings. [continues 208 words]
If you've ever doubted that there's strength in unity, check out what Bolivar County Sheriff's Department Investigator Joe Smith and Cleveland Police Department Investigator Charles "Buster" Bingham have accomplished by working together. Monday the pair of investigators arrested a suspect on charges of possession with intent to distribute marijuana and possession of crack cocaine. Last week they put a suspected meth lab out of business. In approximately a year, Smith and Bingham have made between 30 and 50 drug busts. Seldom does a week go by when news of such events doesn't come down. [continues 430 words]
"It's about your marketability," said Frank Melton, director of the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics, as he addressed students of East Side High Thursday afternoon. Melton began his talk by saying that he felt an obligation to tell students about his concerns so that they can protect themselves. Melton said he felt law enforcement was so busy chasing the three percent of high school students who are causing trouble, that rarely did they pay attention to the 97 percent who are "doing the right thing and staying in school." [continues 607 words]
While drug use is rampant among many teen-agers in the state, most high schools in Bolivar and Sunflower counties don't drug test their students. "If it was an epidemic we would," said James Johnson, the principal of Ruleville Central High School. "We just don't have a lot of problems with that." "We have thought about it, but right now it is cost prohibited," he added. Johnson said if a student is suspected of using drugs, the high school has an agreement worked out with the city to test the student, but as far as the district is concerned, there isn't a policy. [continues 401 words]
MOUND BAYOU - Human Resources Development Institute selected a vacant building here to locate a drug and alcohol treatment center for women. Mound Bayou city officials are scheduled to sign a grant contract Friday with the Mid-Delta Empowerment Zone Alliance worth $475,000, Mayor Kennedy Johnson said. The money will be used to renovate the empty neighborhood facility building, which was last used by Head Start years ago, so the treatment center can move in. "That building has been sitting up for the last 10 or 12 years," Johnson said. "It's already out there. We just got to do a little renovation work to it." [continues 221 words]
The drug bust occurred years ago in Gastonia, N.C., a town faraway, but the same scenario is often played out at police station's and sheriff's departments in every town in the nation, including here in Cleveland and Bolivar County. Officers had conducted an early morning roundup of drug pushers and abusers, and as daylight broke, the parents of the drug suspects began to file into the police station. Their faces were pale and the expressions on those faces told tales of heartbreak and shock. The question the parents most asked each other was, "Where did we go wrong?" Their children may have had other victims as well, but none seem to hurt to badly as the families who loved them. [continues 599 words]
The Bolivar County Regional Correctional Facility graduated 49 inmates from its six-month drug and alcohol program on Wednesday. Circuit Judge Kenneth Thomas spoke at the graduation and said he thought it was important to participate "to encourage and inspire and further enlighten" the graduates along the lines of sobriety. Thomas said he was referring to occurrences like driving while under the influence. The inmates were the first to graduate from the program. "When we first opened the facility, we had the 12-week alcohol treatment program," Warden Tommy Taylor explained. "When we reopened the facility in 2002, the legislation and Department of Corrections needed more treatment slots." [continues 857 words]
Circuit Court Judge Al Smith is right to be enthusiastic about the drug court concept. It does offer "a wonderful opportunity" for those who have gone wrong to set their lives aright. More than that the drug courts are beneficial to society as a whole because they cut down on recidivism. That's especially important in a state like Mississippi which is trying to cope with the financial burden of a burgeoning prison population. When nonviolent drug offenders, who have to apply for the program, are accepted, they are regularly tested for drugs, have to go to court twice a week, meet with mental health counselors weekly, obtain either an high school diploma and be gainfully employed. [continues 185 words]
Investigators arrested two Mississippi Department of Corrections employees for extortion and conspiracy to introduce contraband at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman. MDOC Internal Audit Division investigators arrested correctional officer trainees Johnathan A. Cox of Ruleville on June 6, and Terry B. Thomas of Greenwood on June 9. Cox bonded out of the Sunflower County Jail in Indianola on the day of their arrests, and Thomas bonded out on June 10. Both men were held there on $10,000 bonds. "The grand jury will consider the charges whenever it meets," said Sunflower County Prosecuting Attorney Gary Austin. "I'm not really sure (when), probably in August." [continues 221 words]
An offender is arrested for a drug-related crime. The police notify the District Attorney's office and prosecutors notice this is a potential drug court case. The offender is then given two choices: the standard fine and jail sentence or an opportunity to participate in drug court. If the offender chooses to apply for drug court, the D.A.'s office reviews the legal criteria behind the case. If its office gives the OK, the offender would then go to mental health for an evaluation. [continues 889 words]
Back in the 1990s, Mississippi's lawmakers went on a get-tough-on-crime binge. They passed the so-called "truth-in-sentencing" law which requires inmates to serve 85 percent of their sentences, despite warnings that the law was not only going to be tough on lawbreakers, it was going to be a costly pill for the taxpayers to swallow. The legislators even went so far to prove just how tough on crime they were that they passed a law requiring inmates to wear stripped uniforms, a bill that alone cost the taxpayers of this state $1 million. [continues 310 words]
SHAW - The Rev. Earl V. Hall, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Mound Bayou and an alcohol and drug coordinator for the Mississippi Department of Corrections, told the students at Shaw High School Wednesday it's important for African Americans to look forward and create a positive future. His talk was part of a Black History Month program presented by Shaw High School students titled, "Understanding Our Past, Living Today, Creating Our Future." Hall used various expressions to arouse the students' interest, like Mystical song "Shake It Fast, Watch Yourself, Show Me What You're Working With." [continues 568 words]
Police officers are being cycled into schools in Cleveland School District as part of a COPS Grant that outlines objectives to send messages of anti-smoking and anti-drugs while building self-esteem among students. Officer Wayne Vick began the program by entering Cleveland High School Thursday. He'll also cover Margaret Green Junior High School and Pearman Elementary as part of his beat. To be sure not to under staff the police department, Cleveland Public Safety Commissioner Drew Warren said officers will be cycled into schools in a 30-day sequence. [continues 713 words]
D.A.R.E., the national anti-drug program, has been under attack by researchers who say it doesn't work, which may have led to a newly designed curriculum, but the head of the Cleveland program says the program he's used for nearly seven years is the best thing yet for drug intervention. In January 1996, Police Sgt. Mike McCain began giving lessons concerning the dangers of drugs to children in elementary school classrooms throughout the area. Presently, using lesson plans from the D.A.R.E. program, McCain spends a total of 37 weeks with sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders inside local schools for one-hour sessions. [continues 466 words]
