MEMPHIS, Tenn. (localmemphis.com) – Shelby County Commissioner Tami Sawyer doesn’t want what happened in a few Mississippi prisons to happen in Shelby County prisons. The Mississippi Department of Corrections had a deadly week earlier this month with five inmates deaths and two escapes, which shed light on the inhumane conditions of the prisons.
Sawyer wrote a letter to Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris for an audit of the state-run prisons in Shelby County such as Shelby County Jail and Shelby County Jail East Women’s Facility. She highlights the problems with previous audits including inmate drug overdoses, harassment, and low staffing.
“We don’t practice rehabilitation in our jails and prisons not just here, but if Parchman were in the business of rehabilitation would it have found itself in the state it was,” Sawyer said.
If her resolution passes in committee, Sawyer hopes the audit will happen in the next 60 days, so they can see where changes and decisions need to be made. She said her priority is maintaining the “humanity” of these prisons.
“I think it’s easy to forget prisoners because they have done a crime and they are doing their time, but no matter what someone has done I don’t believe in inhumane treatment for anybody,” Sawyer said.
Since she began her term as county commissioner two years ago, she has had numerous inmates write letters to her explaining the conditions inside the prison walls. However, prison reform has been an interest even before she became commissioner.
“I have cousins who have never seen a day past 17 on the outside, I have a cousin who has been in jail since I was 11 years old and I’m 37 now,” Sawyer said.
Tennessee Department of Corrections said in a statement that the department is committed to improving its procedures and enhancing its internal auditing processes as recommended by the comptroller.
“Like other law enforcement agencies, our employees work extremely hard, day in and day out, to protect the public while facing increasingly difficult challenges,” TDOC said. “The citizens of Tennessee can rest assured that the Tennessee Department of Correction will not compromise public safety and will do everything within our power to ensure that the public, our employees, and the offenders under our supervision are protected.”
Sawyer wants the prisons to work on rehabilitating these inmates, so they can one day have the opportunity to have decent lives outside of the prison system.
“I want people to remember Jesus was in prison, I want people to remember Martin Luther King was in prison more than once, I want people to remember Malcolm X went to jail and so did Rosa Parks,” Sawyer said. “That’s not to erase any of some of the most heinous things that we’ve seen, but that doesn’t mean that we on the outside get to throw away the key and forget people and erase their humanity.”