Work to start soon on training center for MCSO

Facility will train part time officers and corrections officers

MONROE COUNTY, MISS. (WCBI) – The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office will soon have a training center for part-time officers and jailers.

“I used to walk out there on the concrete on that place and think about how this would be a good place to train law enforcement officers one day,” said Monroe County Sheriff Kevin Crook.

Now, that vision of  Sheriff  Crook will become a reality.  The Board of Supervisors recently purchased 16 acres directly across from the sheriff’s department on Meridian Street.

The vacant property was once the site of a cotton compress.

Soon, dirt work will start on Phase One of a training center, which will train part-time officers and corrections officers. It will have classrooms, weight rooms, and locker rooms.

“Just feels like God has laid the foundation for all of that and has gone before us in it, we’re excited about training law officers from all over.  It’s one thing we’ve emphasized for the last two to three years is training, it’s where our heart is.  Things are changing, you constantly have to update tactics and the way you go about things, we want to be on the front end of that,” Sheriff Crook said.

It should take the better part of a year to get the training center built and there are other plans for the rest of the property.

“Phase two and three, shoot house and range and things we will do, hopefully, they will be state of the art, will put us on the map regionally, there’s not anything like we’re wanting to build close to us,” he said.

That means the training center can draw officers from  Mississippi, Alabama, and the southeast.

The Monroe County Sheriff’s Department has also been approved to have a correctional officer’s training academy.  That will be part of phase one.

There are also plans for a walking track and a rehabilitation center for inmates so they can get their GEDs and learn job skills.