Alcorn County Paying Private Prison Company

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – A northeast Mississippi county is paying $9,500 a month to a private prison company owned by a former state lawmaker.

Alcorn County has two contracts with Irb Benjamin, who’s president and lobbyist for Mississippi Correctional Management Inc.

Under one contract, for $5,000 a month, the company handles accreditation for the Alcorn County Regional Correctional Facility.

Under one for $4,500 a month, Benjamin is warden of the jail – a job he’s leaving Monday.

Benjamin represented Alcorn County in the Legislature in the 1980s and early 1990s. He now lives more than 200 miles away in the Jackson suburb of Madison.

He tells The Associated Press on Tuesday that as warden, he spent time in Alcorn County every week but relied on the security chief to oversee daily jail operations.