Christopher Epps was Mississippi’s corrections commissioner and head administrator for the state’s correctional system until recently. He is an African-American in a deep red Southern state who achieved immense professional and personal respect from cops, lawyers, and prison officials across the country. He had achieved prison reforms he advocated fiercely for through results and held the position he had for more than 12 years.
He is also a stark reminder that you can’t have corrupt cops without a corrupt prison system.
To prison reformers, Christopher Epps was a savior. Mississippi’s notorious prison system was overcrowded and inhumane when Epps took over as corrections commissioner in 2002. He reduced sentences for nonviolent offenders, shrunk the prison population, and took hundreds of inmates out of indefinite solitary confinement. Prison reformers called it the “Mississippi Miracle.”
By the time he turned 53, Epps was America’s longest-serving prison commissioner, the first in Mississippi’s history to be appointed by both Democratic and Republican governors. His peers thought so highly of him that he was elected president of two prison administrator professional associations: the American Corrections Association and the Association of State Correctional Administrators.
In short, Chris Epps knew prisons. He’d spent four decades working in the system. Starting as a guard in Mississippi’s oldest prison in 1982, he worked his way to the top of Mississippi’s Department of Corrections in just two decades. Over the next 12 years he became a star.
Prisoner’s rights advocates liked him. Correctional officers liked him. Defense lawyers liked him. Prosecutors liked him. Reporters liked him. Politicians liked him. There might not have been a more universally respected and admired public official in all of Mississippi than Chris Epps.
Then on Nov. 5, he quit his job abruptly, without saying why.
The next day the news broke: allegations of kickbacks for nearly $1 billion worth of private prison contracts. More than $1 million in bribes. A federal investigation, a federal indictment, “a major blow to the systemic and evasive corruption in our state government,” U.S. Attorney Harold Britain said on the steps of the federal courthouse.
Chris Epps knew prisons. Now he faces up to 368 years in one.
Who watches the watchmen, indeed.
Linda Featheringill
Oh, hell.
Perhaps his reforms will remain in place.
ETA: I suspect, however, that other prisoners would treat him well while he was serving time. They would know who he was and what he had done.
Corner Stone
Those don’t seem like the actions of a man being bribed by the Prison Industrial Complex.
I wonder what’s up here?
Baud
Damn. This makes me sad.
Although the cynic in me wonders whether he was have been so popular if he wasn’t on the take (allegedly).
Southern Beale
Related:
Nothing to see here … a Tennessee-based company, which contributes heavily to Republicans, is building a new prison in Trousdale County TN just as state officials close the nearby state-owned and operated facility. JUST A COINCIDENCE, I’M SURE.
CCA is such an evil corporation.
I wonder if there’s any active divestment movement for CCA stock, or if big institutional investors like colleges avoid them already? Anyone know?
Ruckus
If you are one of the watched, another good reason for wanting to drown big government in a bathtub. Hard to bribe and steal with someone looking over your tax receipts and bank accounts. And those of whom you do business with.
Corner Stone
And contra your assertion in the OP, you can have corrupt cops without necessarily having a corrupt prison system. You can’t have corrupt cops without having corrupt leadership, or ineffectual/weak leadership at the top.
Unfortunately, when you’re dealing with taking away some individual’s liberty I’m not sure there exists a way to have a *non-corrupt* prison system.
KG
@Corner Stone: bribes could have come from people looking to get themselves or acquaintances into better situations. The prison industrial complex was satisfied with the billions in kickbacks
It is a reminder that one person in a position of authority for too long will lead to bad things. Power corrupts, and nothing builds power like holding a position for over a decade.
Zandar
@Corner Stone: To Epps it was 100% about cost savings. Solitary confinement is expensive. Housing non-violent offenders is expensive. He fought for paroling non-violent offenders to reduce numbers. In effect he was looking for the most cost-effective prisoners to house and got rid of the ones that were losing him money.
Gin & Tonic
@Southern Beale: A start.
Kropadope
@Corner Stone: Perhaps in order to stop them beating the “soft-on-crime” drums, he had to make a few unsavory deals. The omelette he served was definitely worth breaking those particular eggs.
Gin & Tonic
Years ago my wife worked for a time in a correctional institution (in a health-care capacity.) She always said she trusted the inmates more than the staff.
Gin & Tonic
@Southern Beale: More.
Baud
Somewhat OT: Both LGM and Booman have posts up about an NYT story about the relationship between energy companies and GOP attorneys general. I haven’t read the story yet, but it may be of interest to this crowd (although not really “news,” IMHO).
Mnemosyne
I seriously, seriously doubt he was the only one accepting bribes. Looking at how these cases usually work, there’s probably a whole network of open hands along the way. It may even be how he got buy-in from other officials in the system for his reforms.
This is one of those weird ethical dilemmas that’s almost impossible to reconcile. On the one hand, he essentially stole $1 million in taxpayer money while on the public payroll. On the other, he improved the lives of hundreds — possibly thousands — of prisoners.
I guess we can only hope that his reforms will survive his downfall rather than having a spiteful, non-bribe-taking prison commissioner reverse them all.
Belafon
@Corner Stone: Saints rarely work in Hell.
Betty Cracker
My brother is a CO. He has some blood-curdling tales about the privatization movement, which is basically an anti-gov’t scam. And yeah, CCA is just as evil as you imagine.
burnspbesq
One wonders whether the bribery would have taken place if he’d been paid comparably to the CEO of a similarly-sized private company. We underpay public employees at all levels of government. Some make up for it eventually by taking what they learned in government and spinning the revolving door. For those for whom there is no private-sector demand for their skills, the temptation to cash in in other ways must be strong.
Frankensteinbeck
@Gin & Tonic:
My father taught in a prison for awhile. Math, I think. He said the nicest people were the murderers. The second meanest were the armed robbers. The meanest were the guards.
Kropadope
@burnspbesq:
No, the only government sectors with a growing payroll are those who vote on the payroll.
Patricia Kayden
@Corner Stone: Yes, I would like to see the results of any investigations before jumping the gun. Seems strange that such an upstanding man would have taken bribes. Plus, how would you get bribes for reducing the prison population? I would think bribes would go to those who increase prisoners and thus the need for prisons.
Kropadope
@Patricia Kayden: I expect he found an alternate way for them to make money.
PhilbertDesanex
Sadly I expect this will be used to dismantle his reforms.
raven
Buckeyes in
MattF
Just because:
youtube.com/watch?v=-Cg_eNzl-2E&spfreload=10
Once upon a time, I visited someone in a medium security federal prison. Song rings true.
Baud
@Patricia Kayden:
Speculating here. If he needed to reduce costs to free up budget resources to hire private prison companies, then the whole thing makes sense.
Remfin
@Corner Stone: Knowing how screwed up the system is, maybe all the companies offered bribes. At that point, you could make a 100% proper decision and then take the bribe money anyway, because otherwise you’re just leaving it on the table. I could at least see otherwise good people being tempted to do that…
Corner Stone
I normally don’t like to give BF the click, but I read the whole article.
I’m going to remain sceptical at this point. I know the FBI isn’t going to share their hammer with BF but what was included in the article is miles away from proof of corruption, IMO.
WereBear
People are not binary. He could be both; a sincere reformer who is not above taking bribes when the opportunity arises.
It could be how he soothed his conscience about being corrupt. This is the beginning of whatever is going on… we just don’t know.
One thing is for certain: EVERYTHING we were told about privatization was a lie and it has to be rolled back with ruthless focus.
Roger Moore
@Corner Stone:
Even if he was reducing the prison population overall, he might still have been guilty of steering the business to one company over another. That might even be more important if the prison population was shrinking, since under-capacity prisons are going to be much less profitable than overcrowded ones.
ruemara
Unfortunately, prison reforms are more about cost savings than people savings. The funny thing is, the people saving reforms also save money. It’s far too easy to get people to do the right thing, when you can make them a better profit. Not sure what the full story is, but I can’t wait for it to come out.
Southern Beale
@Gin & Tonic:
Thanks. I wasn’t aware of it. This seems like an issue that needs to get more attention.
Corner Stone
@Roger Moore: The article indicates MS was a prime location for private prison companies as they were well ahead of other states in the percentage of private facilities.
So steering more of that share to one company does make sense, as a potential vector for corruption. And that’s the case the article kind of frames.
But making wholesale changes that reduce the total number of people incarcerated seems contrary to what the PIC would want.
It’s hard to reconcile at this point. And yes, I agree with others that it doesn’t have to be all one thing or all the other thing. There might be some shady mix going on.
Just seems like cutting costs acts as cutting profits for private companies over time.
And really, these damned F’ng state legislatures. WTF, people. How do you think you’re going to get a free market enterprise to do the same damn thing but mandated 10% cheaper to get a contract? What do you think they’re going to do?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Corner Stone: Dunno. I read it quickly, but the information I absorbed makes it seem like there’s a pretty strong case against him. (You’d expect nothing less in a press account, of course.)
One does wonder, though, whether the Mississippi government and prison system is so corrupt that anyone working in a high position in it has to be corrupted. Kinda like “you take this bribe or I burn your house down”. Presumably it started as “innocuous” favors. But these things rarely stay small when millions of dollars are at stake.
This story is a perfect illustration of the dangers of imposing “efficiency” on government responsibilities. Understaffing prisons and paying staff $15k a year isn’t “efficient” – it invites corruption, it imposes huge costs on the rest of society. Only looking at line-item “costs” without considering the system as a whole is a recipe for disaster. Similarly with those who should be performing oversight – if they can’t make a living doing their important job, corruption will too-often result.
Cheers,
Scott.
Corner Stone
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: It sounds like they’re going to flip McCrory to use against Epps. Hard to believe, if there is corruption/bribery, that it ends with Epps.
I liked how the article says that having nice clothes, a nice car and fancy watches didn’t really prove anything but…you know…
Amir Khalid
@burnspbesq:
I’m of the view that there isn’t enough honest money in the world to outbid the bribe-givers. It’s not about getting X dollars a year, it’s about getting more than you get now.
Amir Khalid
This privatisation of prisons in America is done by states and local governments, not by the Federal government; have I got that right? Also, is there another country that privatises its prisons? I know mine does not.
Betty Cracker
@Amir Khalid: I’m not sure whether it not the Feds privatize. The states definitely do.
MattF
@Amir Khalid: Well, the Feds privatize some aspects of the Prison-Industrial-Complex:
eacourier.com/breaking_news/federal-prisoner-transport-vehicle-involved-in-collision-three-prisoners…
But the prisons themselves are run by the gummint, as far as I know.
Suzanne
@Patricia Kayden: You raise the same question I had: why would shrinking the prison population be advantageous to a man in Epps’ position? I can see that if he had a large number of nonviolent offenders whose sentences were relatively close to complete that it might make more sense to get them out in order to free up space for violent criminals who will be in for decades. But I didn’t get the impression that Mississippi didn’t have the capacity. This detail raised an eyebrow for me, but I bet we’ll find out more.
As for the theory that Epps was underpaid, leaving him more likely to accept bribes, I’m not sure that I buy that. The man was still at the top of his game and had plenty to lose. I think some people, due to a moral or ethical lapse, are just more likely to engage in shitty behavior like that. We see it happen among people who make fuckton a of cash, and we see it in people who don’t make much. In the absence of data, I’m unconvinced that corruption or dishonesty is related to low pay.
Ruckus
@Suzanne: I’m unconvinced that corruption or dishonesty is related to low pay.
As I am. Now maybe no one is offering low paid workers money but the statistics that I remember are that low paid workers are not close to the largest group that steals from employers. Maybe that’s because they have the most to lose. In over 20 yrs as a small business owner I had one thief. And my other employees caught him, without me knowing they were even trying to. They didn’t want to be mistrusted, and they wanted to stay employed and have tools and supplies readily available so their jobs were easier.
I think it comes from people who feel they are not getting paid what they deserve for the work they do. Which in this day and age is a wide cross section of the working class. Also they have to see that others are getting paid better and that isn’t happening. And if the only criteria is low pay then we should be seeing widespread workplace theft. And I don’t think we are.
Starfish
@burnspbesq: Well, it is Mississippi so paying anyone working for the government a reasonable wage is unlikely and corruption is likely. The only thing more likely than a corrupt Mississippi government official is a corrupt Louisiana government official.
SRW1
@Amir Khalid:
I am aware of at least one other country: the UK. Apparently, it started in 1992 under the Tories, but Labour under Blair was happy to go along. This year there has been a scandal due to a jump in the suicide rate among inmates.
moderateindy
I once held a position in which I was given the responsibilty to award some contracts. On numerous occasions I was offered bribes of one sort, or the other by almost every vendor competing for the available business. I actually awarded the one contract to the guys that offered me the most lucrative kickback, because they were the best people with the best bid. The money was not unsubstantial (mid to high 4 figures). I always turned down the various bribes because it was a road I did not want to start down, as it rarely ends well. But if we were talking 6 figures, while still awarding the contracts to the best candidates, I don’t know if I would have passed on the cash.
We have a bad disease in this country called the, “It’s just business” syndrome. Industries get so used to doing things that are unethical that it becomes the standard, and as new people enter the industry such practices are all they have ever known, so they don’t even think it’s wrong.
Case in point; I have a friend that started as a pharm rep back in the late 80’s when the incentives drug companies handed out to doctors were absurd. Forget fancy dinners, and tickets to sporting events, or the theater, that was a given. They’d send doctors for week long trips to tropical islands, or swanky ski resorts for so called seminars. It was the industry norm, and he had never known any other way of doing business, and at the time did not even consider that it was unethical. Eventually, the industry changed its ways, because A), the feds threatened to step in and regulate it, and B) it was costing serious cash. But now my friend looks back with disbelief about what were standard business practices for an entire industry,
moderateindy
@Starfish:
I object sir!!! I live in Illinoi, and our gov’t officials will be out-corrupted by no one!
moderateindy
That would be Illinois…………I was told I did not have permission to edit my comment
Mnemosyne
@moderateindy:
That’s what I’m wondering — given what we’ve all heard about deep-seated corruption in Mississippi’s government, I wouldn’t be surprised if accepting the kickbacks was SOP for someone in that position, and it wasn’t until someone with a reputation as a reformer did it that he got investigated and caught.
Roger Moore
@moderateindy:
You’ll have a hard time topping Leland Yee.
@Suzanne:
He wasn’t necessarily doing anything with the goal of soliciting bribes. He’s in a position to determine who gets government contracts, and that makes him a likely target for bribe attempts even if he’s personally clean. He may have been genuinely interested in prison reform but been willing to take money to give contracts to specific companies when it didn’t affect the overall goal of reform.
The Other Bob
@moderateindy:
I can see a situation where a person in government procurement stays completely honest year after year. Year after year people get rich all around this person. Like you, those offering the biggest bribes are getting the contracts anyway. After a while of watching everyone get rich, the honest government employee gets resentful. Then this person falls on hard times. He/she finally caves and takes the cash.
This is the person who gets busted, while the long-time crooks go free.
Corner Stone
@The Other Bob:
The problem I have, (one of them anyway), is that the article talks about not only cash but cashier checks. And direct payments to a mortgage account.
Who the F does that in post 9/11 era? Or even post 2006-ish?
What idiot would take extra income that’s so directly traceable? Not saying people on the grift are all that smart, but that’s pretty fucking stupid.
heckblazer
@MattF: The Federal Bureau of Prisons does have some contract prisons. The facilities used to house people undergoing deportation hearings are also frequently private, and reportedly have pretty horrible conditions.