Lee County jail work program gives felons opportunities to serve

The Lee County program that gives inmates the supervised opportunity to work in the community does a great deal of positive good, the sheriff says, not just for the community itself, but for the inmates doing the work.

Lee County Sheriff Jim Johnson and his department have been operating an inmate work program for more than 20 years. The program is coordinated with the Mississippi Department of Corrections and gives convicted felons and state inmates the opportunity to do something other than nothing. Low-risk prisoners sentenced to serve a year or more in the state penitentiary may, instead, serve their sentence under the supervision of the Lee County Sheriff and, while there, do work of benefit to the community.