Jackson Free Press

It really doesn't come as a big surprise that an effort is now under way to scale back last year's package of sweeping criminal-justice reform bills.

We got a glimpse of what was to come at the end of the 2014 when state Rep. Andy Gipson, R-Braxton, pushed an amendment to House Bill 585 to stiffen penalties for drug trafficking. Gipson said at the time that the change would target drug kingpins, who cause "pain, misery and suffering" through the sale of drugs."

Ironically, the intent of HB 585 was to alleviate the pain, misery and suffering of families and communities who lost loved ones to hard time in Mississippi in some of the nation's toughest and most populated prisons. The idea had wide support from liberals and conservative Republicans. The latter group was happy to have a mechanism to deflate the Mississippi Department of Correction ballooning budget. Putting people with low-level drug offenses through alternative sentencing programs, requiring drug testing and electronic monitoring—all of which the accused, not the state, would pay for—was a good way to hold costs in check while not appearing to be going soft on criminals.

The scuttlebutt was that judges and prosecutors, who are elected in Mississippi, opposed the changes because their political bread is buttered on the ability to throw the book at defendants. Now, lawmakers are going back to the drawing board and adding harsher penalties for some crimes. Not all of changes appear unreasonable on their faces, such as updating the definition of what constitutes a sex crime against children and vulnerable people.

Others, however, seem to directly undermine the spirit of the original legislation. One such bill gives judges 180 days to hold a revocation hearing for people accused of violating parole or probation.

In other words, an individual could be picked up on a violation and sit in a jail cell for six months until a judge feels like holding a hearing on their guilt or innocence. For anyone who has followed the situation at the Raymond Detention Center, which has been quiet lately, they know that the longer people languish in jail, the more likely that something bad will happen to them (or that they might do something bad to a fellow prisoner).

The promise of HB 585 was that it would give people a chance to avoid prison and become productive, law-abiding, taxpaying members of society. After not even a full year after implementation, the people on all sides of the political aisle and, most importantly the people who would benefit from it, deserve a chance to see if the law can in fact change lives and our state for the better.