Mississippi takes management of prison from private company

HOLLY SPRINGS, Miss. (AP) — The Mississippi Department of Corrections is taking over operation of Marshall County Correctional Facility — a prison that has been privately run since it opened 25 years ago.

Management & Training Corp. is the private company most recently contracted to operate the 1,000-bed, medium-security prison.

Mississippi Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain says the company was having trouble hiring and retaining employees because the prison is close to Memphis, Tennessee.

Cain says the Department of Corrections raised the pay at the prison to $15 an hour. He says MTC couldn’t do that because it has to keep a consistent pay scale at all the prisons it runs.