Opinion ID: 398947
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The County Jails

Text: 2 Mississippi law requires each county to erect and maintain a jail at its own expense. Miss.Code Ann. § 19-3-41 (1972); see id. § 19-9-11 (renovation or erection of new jail); id. §§ 19-9-1, -93 (methods of funding). The county must also feed, clothe, and care for its inmates at county expense. Id. §§ 47-1-47, -57. The county jails have generally been used to house pretrial detainees and convicts whose sentences are not more than one year (county inmates). 1 In 1977, however, Mississippi enacted a law which authorizes the state department of corrections to place (a)ny person ... placed under (its) custody (any state prisoner) in a county jail until space becomes available in the penitentiary. Miss.Code Ann. § 47-5-112(1). This provision was passed as a result of the limitations imposed in Gates v. Collier, 423 F.Supp. 732 (N.D.Miss.1976), aff'd, 548 F.2d 1241 (5th Cir. 1977), on the number of inmates that may be incarcerated in the state penitentiary.